GEORGE BERNARD SHAW - AUTOGRAPH NOTE SIGNED 06/19/1917 - HFSID 30597

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
George Bernard Shaw sends an autograph note about a politician's views.
Autograph Note Signed: "GBS", 4½x2. 10 Adelphi Terrace, W.C., 1917 June 19. On card imprinted "With Bernard Shaw's compliments" to unknown recipient. In full: "Did you see Jonnart's manifesto? It reads almost too outrageous to be genuine." Shaw has drawn parentheses around address. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856-1950) is commenting on CHARLES C. JONNART, a French politician who was on a mission in Athens for the Allied Command. There, he pressured King Constantine to abdicate and encouraged Greece to aid the Allies during WWI (1914-1918). The news media released details of Constantine's abdication a week before Shaw's note; a week after the note was written, U.S. troops landed in France (Greece entered the War on July 2). Shaw began writing plays in 1892 (Widowers' Houses); in 1917, his play, Augustus Does Hit Bit, was in production. Shaw's best known works include Man and Superman, Candida, Pygmalion (turned after Shaw's death into the musical comedy, My Fair Lady), Saint Joan and Major Barbara. The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925, he was lauded by the Nobel Committee "for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty." Slightly soiled. Fine condition. Framed to an overall size of 18½x22¼.