Beschreibung:

SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD. Four autograph letters signed, five typed letters signed, and four autograph postcards signed to Siegfried Trebitsch in Vienna and various places in Germany, written from London, Ayot St. Lawrence, the Continent, Madeira, etc., 7 May 1904-11 September 1907 and 14 March 1923-24 January 1925. Together 13 letters and cards, 15 1/2 pages, 12mo-4to, most of the letters on Shaw's imprinted letterheads, a few cards slightly soiled, red pencilled numbers at top of a few letters, the letters mostly signed "G. Bernard Shaw," the cards mostly with initials. SHAW: SO BUSY HE HAS TO "FINISH 'MAJOR BARBARA' WITH MY TOES" A fine series to Siegfried Trebitsch (1869-1956), whom Shaw had met in 1900. Trebitsch translated Shaw's plays into German and helped him obtain early recognition on the Continent, before the playwright's genius was acknowledged in England. The first half of the correspondence (1904-07) is mainly concerned with Shaw's own works; the second half (1923-25) mostly deals with Jitta's Atonement , a free translation by Shaw of a Trebitsch play. 14 September 1905: "...I am getting on slowly with You Never Can Tell : I am ashamed to say that I have not yet finished the second Act...The fact that the new play Major Barbara , which is down for production at the Court Theatre on the 28 Nov. is only finished in the rough, and is by no means yet ready for the stage, keeps me quite unsettled and prevents my settling down steadily to anything else. The news from America is that Man and Superman has been a collossal success; and I have no doubt that it is the surest card we can play in Germany to complete our conquest...At the same time do not forget that Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (seven plays!) were published here early in 1898; and that therefore Widower's Houses and The Philanderer must be translated and published in the course of the next two years or we shall lose our copyright." 26 September 1905: "...Are you quite sure that you have not got Bashville. It is at the end of Cashel Byron's Profession , a novel of mine. I thought you had a copy. It is now being reprinted; so I cannot send you a copy instanter; but I will as soon as the new edition is finished and bound. After all my trouble early this year through the bankruptcy of my London publisher, I am now plunged into the same trouble in America. When you have been once or twice through this sort of experience, you will understand why I am so inexorable about my agreements. The public libraries of New York have just placed my works on 'the restricted list' (index expurgatorius) and the papers are clamoring for a manifesto from me in reply. So I have to fight New York with one hand, Schlenther [a German producer] with the other, and meanwhile finish Major Barbara with my toes, and worry about the casting at the Court Theatre, where Barker is forgetting everything I have arranged with him [for Major Barbara ] in a way that would drive any other man mad..." 11 September 1907 (a card, mostly relating to Richard Strauss): "Strauss is by a great deal the first German genius of the age, just as Wagner was, just as Rodin is in France...I dislike dedications myself: they are all nonsense -- a survival from the time when they were a method of begging a present of money from the dedicatee; but Strauss stands above that sort of thing, and it occurred to me that if you admired him you might like to dedicate the translation. But since you don't admire him, and cannot issue the book as 'to the Accursed Noise Maker'...better let my suggestion drop..." 2 October 1923: "...Your own play Jitta's Atonement is a British commercial interest now that I have translated it and had it produced in America. Two managers are reading it with a view to production during the forthcoming season; and I must discuss the affair with you personally, as the respective merits of the parties concerned cannot be fully discussed in black and white..." 24 January 1925: "...As to Stefan Zweig, I