Bernard Shaw: Man and Writer by Audrey Williamson (review)

338 MODERN DRAMA December wit of which G. B. S. was a master, through letters to the press, fragments from prefaces to plays, and other writings, arranged chronologically by Dr. Tauber in an illuminating manner. These pieces show the growth and concentration of Shaw's thought over a period of fifty years. Although Shaw's ideas on this subject are interesting in themselves, they are enhanced by Sir James Pitman's authoritative and scholarly assessment of them in several selections at the end of the book. In his role of advisor to the Solicitor General and the Public Trustee and as a member of the committee which chose the winners of the "Proposed British Alpha-bet" contest, Sir james's objections to the court's decision against the reforms stipulated in Shaw's will (the final essay in the book) are enlightening, particularly when he compares Shaw's alphabet as it has now finally been established through the recent alphabet edition of &ndrocles and the Lion with the Initial Teaching Alphabet championed by Sir James and now used transitionally in teaching British school children to read. Sir James's faith in Shaw's ideas on language and the proposed reforms offsets to some extent Professor Jacques Barzun's attempt to demolish Shaw's logic (The Independent Shaman, April, 1963) and Miss Barbara Smoker's caution (The Shavian [London], February, 19(4) that "until the battle of the kindergarten has been won, the ABC will never be superseded for general Use by human beings ." But we may still regret Shaw's failure to stress the importance of his alphabet being taught at the elementary level. While Dr. Tauber's annotations are clear and informative throughout, the reader is likely to be annoyed by their repetitiousness. He is constantly reminded that Shaw fought for phonetic spelling; he is told over and over what must soon be obvious to the most uninitiated reader-that Shaw advocated a 42-letter alphabet which would reproduce the 40-odd sounds in English, and that he used the term "Johnsonese" to castigate the conventional orthography established in 1755 by Dr. Samuel johnson's famous dictionary. Nor is it entirely apparent to most readers just why Shaw's interest in language reform is being exhibited in such detail. True, the Shaw Alphabet, despite the English court's 1957 ruling, has finally, with the help of the three Residuary Legatees-the British Museum, the National Gallery of Ireland, and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art-become a reality. But this fact, plus our recognition that phonetic spelling is now to some extent being incorporated into British and American educational curricula, will perhaps not seem to justify the publication of so extensive a collection, since Shaw's ideas on language and spelling reform do not really represent his best thinking. It is regrettable that Dr. Barzun's and Miss Smoker's appraisals of the Shaw Alphabet could not have been included in Dr. Tauber's volume, so as to reveal the extent to which Shaw's proposed reforms have aroused and stimulated linguistic specialists in different parts of the English speaking world. STEPHEN S. STANTON University of Michigan BERNARD SHAW: MAN AND WRITER, by Audrey Williamson, The CrowellCollier Press, New York, Collier-Macmillan, Ltd., London, 1963, 224 pp. Price $4.95. One's first impulse, after running through the pages of Audrey Williamson's Bernard Shaw: Man and Writer, is to wonder why this small book was ever written. Although it calls itself a "biography," no one would ever go to it for the facts of Shaw's life. Indeed, Miss Williamson acknowledges that her source mate- 1965 BOOK REVIEWS 339 rial has come chiefly from St. John Ervine's Bernard Shaw (by no means the most dependable of the Shaw biographies) and Mander and Mitchenson's Theatrical Companion to the Plays of Shaw. She also admits the helpfulness of the Shaw correspondence with Ellen Terry. Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Granville-Barker, and Molly Tompkins. Her "most valuable material," however, has come from Shaw's "own published writings." The only "further material in the way of books. photographs or reminiscences" came from Cyril Cusack. Sybil Thorndike. Flora Robson. and Walter Hudd...