SIGNED 5 PLAYS BY GB SHAW. Back to Methuselah. A Metabiological Pentateuch de Shaw, George Bernard - 1921

London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1921. First edition.

PRESENTATION COPY OF GB SHAW'S COLLECTION OF 5 PLAYS REFLECTING ON DARWINIAN EVOLUTION, INSCRIBED TO COMPOSER MARGARET LANG.

12x18 cm 3/4 morocco with gilt rulings and salmon cloth covered boards, spine with raised bands, gilt compartments and gilt title, marbled endpapers, handstamp of Baynton Binder, Bath, top of verso of front free endpaper. i-lxxxix, 267 pp. Inscribed and signed on half title by author to Margaret Lang dated 16 June 1921. Near fine in custom archival mylar cover. Back to Methuselah (A Metabiological Pentateuch) by George Bernard Shaw consists of a preface (The Infidel Half Century) and a series of five plays: In the Beginning: B.C. 4004 (In the Garden of Eden), The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas: Present Day, The Thing Happens: A.D. 2170, Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman: A.D. 3000, and As Far as Thought Can Reach: A.D. 31,920. All were written during 1918 to 1920 and published simultaneously by Constable (London) and Brentano's (New York) in 1921. They were first performed in 1922 by the New York Theatre Guild at the old Garrick Theatre in New York City and, in Britain, at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1923. Shaw had an exalted opinion of Back to Methuselah as both literature and philosophy; in the press release he wrote for its publishers (Constable & Co., London) he said it would "interest biologists, religious leaders, and lovers of the marvelous in fiction as well as lovers of the theatre" and described it as his supreme work in dramatic literature. He considered it a book for reading rather than playing on the stage, and was agreeably surprised when Lawrence Langner in New York and Barry Vincent Jackson in Birmingham insisted on producing it despite expectations of monetary loss, which were promptly justified. Shaw's scientific rationale for evolving long-lived humans depended on the inheritance of acquired characteristics. This accorded with the theories of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, even though Lamarckism was in decline and Charles Darwin's views were ascendant in 1920, when the plays were written.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856-1950) was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, with a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory. Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

PROVENANCE: MARGARET RUTHVEN LANG (1867 - 1972) was an American composer, affiliated with the Second New England School. Lang was also first woman composer to have a composition performed by a major American symphony orchestra. She was born in Boston, the eldest child of Frances Morse Burrage Lang, an amateur singer, and Benjamin Johnson "B. J." Lang, a conductor, pianist, organist, composer, and accompanist (later director) of several choral groups including: The Apollo Club, The Cecilia Society, and the Handel and Haydn Society. B. J. Lang was a powerful member of the musical aristocracy of Boston and the Lang home, located at 8 Brimmer Street, saw many guests including Maude Powell, Camilla Urso, Dvoøák, and Paderewski. B. J. Lang was also a friend of Franz Liszt and his daughter Cosima, and of Richard Wagner. Margaret knew Wagner's children as playmates.