Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw
page 1 of 272 (00%)
MAN AND SUPERMAN

A COMEDY AND A PHILOSOPHY

By Bernard Shaw




EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO ARTHUR BINGHAM WALKLEY

My dear Walkley:

You once asked me why I did not write a Don Juan play. The levity with
which you assumed this frightful responsibility has probably by this
time enabled you to forget it; but the day of reckoning has arrived:
here is your play! I say your play, because qui facit per alium facit
per se. Its profits, like its labor, belong to me: its morals, its
manners, its philosophy, its influence on the young, are for you to
justify. You were of mature age when you made the suggestion; and you
knew your man. It is hardly fifteen years since, as twin pioneers of
the New Journalism of that time, we two, cradled in the same new sheets,
made an epoch in the criticism of the theatre and the opera house by
making it a pretext for a propaganda of our own views of life. So you
cannot plead ignorance of the character of the force you set in motion.
You meant me to epater le bourgeois; and if he protests, I hereby refer
him to you as the accountable party.

I warn you that if you attempt to repudiate your responsibility, I shall
suspect you of finding the play too decorous for your taste. The
DigitalOcean Referral Badge