SHAW, George Bernard.

Everybody's Political What's What?

London: Constable and Company , 1944.

$2,250.00

In Stock Item Number: RRB-148661

Custom Clamshell Box

Hand made by the Harcourt Bindery. ~90 days

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First Edition of Everybody's Political What's What?; Inscribed by George Bernard Shaw to Chinese Historian Chen Yuam

First edition of this classic work. Octavo, original cloth, frontispiece of Shaw. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, "Inscribed for Professor Chen Yuam G. Bernard Shaw Ayot Saint Lawrence 1st Nov. 1946." The recipient Chen Yuam was a Chinese historian and educator. Chen, together with Lü Simian, Chen Yinke and Ch'ien Mu, was known as the "Four Greatest Historians" of Modern China.He is known for his work in the fields of religious history, Yuan Dynasty history, textology and textual criticism. Chen was a professor of Peking University, Beijing Normal University and Fu Jen Catholic University. He later served as the president of Beijing Normal University. Before 1949, he also served as the president of Metropolitan Library and the Palace Museum library. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. An exceptional example.

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, socialist, and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama. Over the course of his life he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his plays address prevailing social problems, but each also includes a vein of comedy that makes their stark themes more palatable. In these works Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege. He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938). The former for his contributions to literature and the latter for his work on the film "Pygmalion" (adaptation of his play of the same name). Shaw wanted to refuse his Nobel Prize outright, as he had no desire for public honors, but he accepted it at his wife's behest. She considered it a tribute to Ireland. He did reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance translation of Swedish books to English.