A Shaw Chronology
This comprehensive chronology of Shaw's plays is reproduced by kind permission of Michel Pharand.
Michel W. Pharand is a leading scholar and former editor of SHAW: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies who has spent decades researching and documenting the life and works Bernard Shaw.
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His work typically focuses on the "Shavian" legacy through critical analysis of Shaw's international influences and professional relationships. Key collaborations and works include:
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Bernard Shaw and the French: In this seminal 2001 study, Pharand explores Shaw’s complex relationship with French culture, tracing the influence of French philosophers like Henri Bergson
and playwrights like Eugène Brieux on his work.
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Bernard Shaw and His Publishers where he annotated a collection of selected correspondence, detailing Shaw's meticulous involvement in the production and business side of his books.
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The Critical Shaw Series where he edited "Bernard Shaw on Religion."
Shaw’s Novels, Plays and Commentary
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First date: year(s) written
Second date: year of first performance
Third date(s): year(s) of publication [in brackets]
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1878 My Dear Dorothea: A Practical System of Moral Education for Females Embodied
in a Letter to a Young Person of that Sex (ed. S. Winsten) [1906; 1956]
1878 Passion Play (fragment) [1971]
1879 Immaturity (novel) [1930]
1880 The Irrational Knot (novel) [ser. 1885-7; 1905]
1881 Love Among the Artists (novel) [ser. 1887-8; 1900]
1882 Cashel Byron’s Profession (novel) [ser. 1885-6; 1886; rev 1889, 1901]
1883 An Unsocial Socialist (novel) [ser. 1884; 1887]
1884 Un Petit Drame (playlet) [1959]
1884/92 Widowers’ Houses 1893 [1893; rev. 1898]
1887-88 An Unfinished Novel (novel fragment) [1958]
1889 Fabian Essays in Socialism (ed. Shaw) [1889; rev. 1908, 1931, 1948]
1890 Ibsen Lecture before the Fabian Society [1970]
1891 The Quintessence of Ibsenism (criticism) [1891; rev. 1913]
1893 The Philanderer 1905 [1898]
1893 Mrs Warren’s Profession 1902 [1898; rev. 1930]
1893-94 Arms and The Man 1894 [1898; rev. 1930]
1894 Candida 1897 [1898; rev. 1930]
1895 The Man of Destiny 1897 [1898; rev. 1930]
1895 The Sanity of Art (art criticism) [1895; rev. 1908]
1895-96 You Never Can Tell 1899 [1898; rev. 1930]
1896 The Devil’s Disciple 1897 [1901; rev. 1904]
1898 The Perfect Wagnerite (music criticism) [1898; rev. 1907]
1898 Caesar and Cleopatra 1901 [1901; rev. 1930]
1899 Captain Brassbound’s Conversion 1900 [1901]
1900 Fabianism and The Empire: A Manifesto (ed. Shaw) [1900]
1901 The Admirable Bashville 1902 [1901]
1901-02 Man and Superman 1905 [1903; rev. 1930]
1904 John Bull’s Other Island 1904 [1907; rev. 1930]3
1904 How He Lied to Her Husband 1904 [1907]
1904 The Common Sense of Municipal Trading (social commentary) [rev. 1908]
1905 Major Barbara 1905 [1907; rev. 1930, 1945]
1905 Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction 1905 [1905]
[1906] Dramatic Opinions and Essays (theatre criticism) [Saturday Review 1895-98]
1906 The Doctor’s Dilemma 1906 [1911]
1907 The Interlude at the Playhouse (playlet) 1907 [1927]
1907-08 Getting Married 1908 [1911]
1909 The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet 1909 [1911; rev. 1930]
1909 Press Cuttings 1909 [1909]
1909 The Glimpse of Reality 1927 [1926]
1909 The Fascinating Foundling 1928 [1926]
1909 Misalliance 1910 [1914; rev. 1930]
1910 Brieux: A Preface (criticism) [1910]
1910 The Dark Lady of the Sonnets 1910 [1914]
1910-11 Fanny’s First Play 1911 [1914]
1912 Androcles and the Lion 1913 [1916]
1912 Overruled 1912 [1916]
1912 Pygmalion 1913 [1916; rev. 1941]
1913 Beauty’s Duty (playlet) [1932]
1913 Great Catherine 1913 [1919]
1913-14 The Music-Cure 1914 [1926]
1914 Common Sense about The War (political commentary) [1914]
1915 The Inca of Perusalem 1916 [1919]
1915 O’Flaherty, V.C. 1917 [1919]
1916 Augustus Does His Bit 1917 [1919]
1917 Doctors’ Delusions; Crude Criminology; Sham Education [1931]
1917 Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress 1918 [1919]
1917 How To Settle The Irish Question (political commentary) [1917]
1917 What I Really Wrote about The War (political commentary) [1931]
1916-17 Heartbreak House 1920 [1919]
1918-20 Back to Methuselah 1922 [1921; rev. 1930, 1945]
1919 Peace Conference Hints (political commentary) [1919]
1920-21 Jitta’s Atonement (adapted from the German) 1923 [1926]
1919 Ruskin’s Politics (lecture of 21 November 1919) [1921]4
1923 Saint Joan 1923 [1924]
1925 Imprisonment (social commentary) [1925; republished as
The Crime of Imprisonment 1946]
1928 The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism [1928; rev. 1937]
1928 The Apple Cart 1929 [1930]
1929 The League of Nations (political commentary) [1929]
[1931] Ellen Terry and Shaw: A Correspondence [1931]
1931 Too True to Be Good 1932 [1934]
1931 How These Doctors Love One Another (playlet) [1962]
1931 Pen Portraits and Reviews (criticism) [1931]
1931/34 The Millionairess 1936 [1936]
[1931] Complete Plays [1931; rev 34, 38, 50, 52, 65]
[1932] Our Theatres in the Nineties (theatre criticism) [Saturday Review 1895-98]
1932 The Adventures of the Black Girl In Her Search for God (story) [1932]
1932 Essays in Fabian Socialism (political commentary) [1932]
1933 The Future of Political Science in America (political commentary) [1933]
1933 Village Wooing 1934 [1934]
1933 On The Rocks 1933 [1934]
1934 The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles 1935 [1936]
1934 The Six of Calais 1934 [1936]
1934 Short Stories, Scraps, and Shavings (stories & playlets) [1934]
1936 Arthur and the Acetone (playlet) [1936]
1936 Cymbeline Refinished 1937 [1938]
1936 Geneva 1938 [1939; rev. 1939, 40, 46, 47]
1936/47 Buoyant Billions 1948 [1949]
[1937] Music In London (music criticism) [Star 1888-89; World 90-94]
1938-39 “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days” 1939 [1939; rev. 1947]
1939 Shaw Gives Himself Away: An Autobiographical Miscellany [1939]
1944 Everybody’s Political What’s What (political commentary) [1944]
1948 Farfetched Fables 1950 [1951]
1939 Sixteen Self Sketches (revision of Shaw Gives Himself Away) [1949]
1949 Shakes Versus Shav (puppet play) 1949 [1950]
1950 Why She Would Not 1957 [1960]
1950 Rhyming Picture Guide to Ayot Saint Lawrence [1950]