Widowers' Houses & Selected Correspondence Relating to the Play. Bernard Shaw

ETC.: Continued vegetarianism. Took to the woollen clothing system, and gave up using sheets in bed. Acting: Made an attempt to act in a third rate comedy at Notting Hill with the Avelings [Edward Aveling and Eleanor Marx], on the 30th January.

      FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES: My father’s death in April put a stop to the 30/— a week he had been sending us, but we got nearly £100 by a policy of insurance on his life. With this we could do little more than pay off our debts and replace our worn-out clothes. [My sister] Lucy was at work on the stage in the provinces all the year. My mother suddenly struck a new vein of work as the teacher of singing in the High Schools towards the end of the year. I also slipped into paid journalism; but this put a stop to my life’s work.

      STUDIES: Almost nil. Towards the end of the year I began to read German with Sidney Webb once a week, but I pursued it in a very desultory manner. I lost much time by my laziness in the matter of getting up in the morning. I had no time to read much in economics, but I attended a circle at Hampsteed formed for the study of [Karl] Marx and [Pierre-Joseph] Proudhon; and in November I began to go to the house of [Henry R.] Beeton, a stockbroker in 42 Belsize Square where [Herbert Somerton] Foxwell, [Philip] Wicksteed, [Francis Y.] Edgeworth and others met fortnightly to discuss economic questions. My practical interest in music was revived by my duties as critic of The Dramatic Review.

      [SEX LIFE:] On the 26th July, my 29th birthday, begins an intimacy with a lady [Mrs Jane “Jenny” Patterson] of our acquaintance. This was my first connection of the kind. I was an absolute novice. I did not take the initiative in the matter.

      2/ Bernard Shaw’s diary entry for 25th August 1885

      Princess’s Theatre. Hoodman Blind [by Wilson Barrett and Henry Arthur Jones].

      Copy out some of the drama [later called the Rheingold or Widowers’ Houses] I began [with William Archer on the 18th August] last year. Saw Archer at Museum. On my return found JP [Jane Patterson] here very angry because [Risden H.] Home had written to her friend [Robert] Boyle about something that I told him. Took her off to Princess’s. May Morris there with the Walkers (Emery) and the Pennells [Joseph Pennell and the writer, not the actress Elizabeth Robins]. Went to restaurant to get JP a cup of coffee. Home with her.

      Dinner 1/- PMG [Pall Mall Gazette] 1d Rec’d: Mrs Besant £3/8/9

      3/ Bernard Shaw’s diary

      Preliminary Notes 1886

      This page I am writing up on the 26th December 1887, having in my inveterate laziness and procrastination put it off for a whole year.

      RESIDENCE: Still 36 Osnaburgh St.

      HABITS: The same as last year, except that I made a stand against late rising by using an alarum clock and actually succeeding in getting up regularly at 8 every morning until the end of the year when the clock broke and I began immediately to relapse. I got a new clock, but did not quite regain my punctuality, which by and by, made me so sleepy in the afternoon that I got into the habit of taking a nap in the Museum over my books.

      OCCUPATION: Writing reviews for the Pall Mall Gazette and notices of picture exhibitions for The World (Archer procured for me the post of art critic on that paper on resigning it himself in February) for my living, and lecturing etc. on Socialism.

      NOVELS: Wrote no new fiction. Cashel Byron I published in a shilling edition by Champion in February, and in New York by Harper’s in December.

      LECTURES, SOCIETIES, ETC.: Same as last year. The Hampstead Marx Circle became the Hampstead Historic Club.

      STUDIES: Made a desperate attempt to learn and work through [Heinrich Godefroy] Ollendorff from end to end, but did not find myself much the forwarder for it.

      FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES: Mother teaching at public schools—class singing. Lucy on the stage as comic opera prima donna. During this year my work at the Fabian brought me much into contact with Mrs [Annie] Besant, and towards the end of the year this intimacy became of a very close and personal sort, without, however, going further than a friendship.

      4/ Bernard Shaw’s diary

      Preliminary Notes 1887

      RESIDENCE: 36 Osnaburgh St. until the 4th of March, when we moved to 29 Fitzroy Sq., of which we took the 3rd and 4th floors. But as the new rooms were then uninhabitable I stayed at Barton’s, 2 Courtfield Rd., until the 21st March, on which day I took up quarters at Fitzroy Sq. The move was forced upon us by the bankruptcy of the landlord at Osnaburgh St.

      HABITS: I continued the old routine at the British Museum until the middle of September, when finding that it was impossible to work amid acquaintances who kept constantly coming to chat with me, I turned one of the rooms on the top floor here into a studio and gave up the Museum. I also drew up a timetable to which I stuck well at first, but rather lamely afterwards, especially as I relapsed more and more into my old bad habits as to late rising. But it enabled me to copy out the unfinished drama [later called Widowers’ Houses] I wrote in shorthand in 1884. When it was finished (that is, the transcript, not the drama) Archer ridiculed it. I then dropped it, and left it with him, subsequently suggesting that he should give it to H. A. [Henry Arthur] Jones, who might borrow a notion from it for a drama touching socialism. The timetable also made provisions for some work at algebra and German, at both of which I made very slow and precarious progress. A good deal of laziness, late rising, and remorse towards the end of the year.

      OCCUPATION: Criticism for my living, and socialism for my unpaid work. Literary criticism in the Pall Mall Gazette, criticism of pictures in The World, and the payments from Our Corner for The Irrational Knot and Love Among the Artists providing me with money. My Mother of course helped by her teaching, chiefly of class singing at high schools. In June I succeeded [William] Archer as a correspondent of the New York Epoch, but after writing two letters to them I gave it up, as they asked for fashionable gossip.

      FAMILY EVENTS: My sister Lucy was married to Charles Edward Butterfield, an actor aged 35 (her own age being 34) at St. John’s Church, Charlotte St., Fitzroy Sq., on the 17th December.

      NOVELS: I began a new one on the 14th May and kept at it for a day or two, then continued at longer intervals until the 14th June, when I gave it up from want of time. An Unsocial Socialist was published in the spring in one volume at 6 shillings; but it did not sell at this price. In July I wrote a sketch entitled “Don Giovanni Explains” for Unwin’s Annual; but the Annual was not published in consequence of [Henry] Norman, the editor, going abroad for a trip, and the sketch was left on my hands.

      STUDIES: None, except the work at algebra and German reading described above under “Habits,” and such studies as my reviewing needed.

      SOCIETIES, LECTURES, ETC.: In July I joined the Parliamentary Debating Society called the Charing Cross Parliament, where a Socialist government was formed of which I was a member (President Local Government Board). As this met on Friday, it kept me away from the New Shakspere and Browning Societies during the latter half of the year. Otherwise I kept up last year’s habits as far as societies are concerned. Tuesday meetings at Beeton’s were discontinued during the early half of the year, but resumed in the winter for the discussion of [Philip Henry] Wicksteed’s MS. of a primer of economics. [Henry Ramié] Beeton had meanwhile moved to 9 Mansfield Gardens (see “Studies” 1885).

      DOMESTIC CIRCUMSTANCES: Same as last year; but as our rent was reduced and our earnings rather enlarged, we got a new piano on the hire system and began to live a very little more freely.

      [SEX LIFE:] The intimacy with Mrs [Annie] Besant alluded to last year reached in January a point at which it threatened to become a vulgar intrigue, chiefly through my fault. But I roused myself in time and avoided this. I however frequently went to her house on Monday evenings and played pianoforte duets (mostly Haydn symphonies arranged) with her. At Xmas, I returned her all her letters and she mine. Reading over