Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$1937.41 + shipping
Description: First edition, first impression, presentation copy, inscribed by Shaw to his Italian agent and translator Antonio Agresti on the half-title: "To Antonio Agresti from G. Bernard Shaw 23rd. Feb. 1911". The titular work was one of many plays of Shaw's that Agresti translated before his death, helping Shaw to reach an Italian audience. Agresti had been partly chosen by Shaw as his translator for his anarchist beliefs, and he was a member of anarchist circles in both London and in Italy. Shaw stated that he wrote The Doctor's Dilemma to meet a challenge from his friend William Archer, a theatre critic, who claimed that Shaw could only be regarded as a supreme dramatist when he had written a play about death. The resultant work, a satire on the British medical profession in the early 20th century, remains widely regarded as a key work in Shaw's canon and in the fictional literature on medical ethics. The other two plays in the collection were first performed in 1908 and 1909 respectively and are here also published for the first time. Laurence A108. Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Light wear to extremities, spine sunned, a few marks to cloth and endpapers, blue crayon to rear pastedown. A good copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$2475.00 + shipping
Description: First Edition. Hardcover. Signed by Author. Shaw, George Bernard. THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA. Getting Married, & The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet. Inscribed. London: Constable & Co., 1911. "Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." Sm. 8vo., 407pp., pale green cloth, gilt, t.e.g. A very good or better example of the first edition, first printing. Three plays in one volume, including a list of other works by Shaw at the end of the book. This copy inscribed on the half-title in black fountain pen: "To Robert Loraine / from Bernard Shaw. / 23rd Feb. 1911". Laurence A108. Loraine [1876-1935] was a man of action: actor-manager, soldier, aviator, Fabian & of course, a close friend to Shaw - perhaps best known as an actor he's seen most commonly on holiday with the Shaws & Harley Granville-Barker or at Fabian events. Loraine & Shaw shared political affiliations & a passion for theatre: it was Loraine who premiered as the lead in Man & Superman on Broadway, the production was massively successful & launched Shaw as a force to be reckoned with in the United States. A significant association copy. Custom TBCL embossed cloth slipcase in fine condition.
Seller: TBCL The Book Collector's Library, Montreal, QC, Canada