HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND

by GEORGE BERNARD SHAW




PREFACE

Like many other works of mine, this playlet is a piece
d'occasion. In 1905 it happened that Mr Arnold Daly, who was then
playing the part of Napoleon in The Man of Destiny in New York,
found that whilst the play was too long to take a secondary place
in the evening's performance, it was too short to suffice by
itself. I therefore took advantage of four days continuous rain
during a holiday in the north of Scotland to write How He Lied To
Her Husband for Mr Daly. In his hands, it served its turn very
effectively.

I print it here as a sample of what can be done with even the
most hackneyed stage framework by filling it in with an observed
touch of actual humanity instead of with doctrinaire romanticism.
Nothing in the theatre is staler than the situation of husband,
wife and lover, or the fun of knockabout farce. I have taken
both, and got an original play out of them, as anybody else can
if only he will look about him for his material instead of
plagiarizing Othello and the thousand plays that have proceeded
on Othello's romantic assumptions and false point of honor.

A further experiment made by Mr Arnold Daly with this play is