Book description
Back to Methuselah (A Metabiological Pentateuch) is a 1921 series of
five plays and a preface by George Bernard Shaw. The five plays are: 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; As Far as Thought Can Reach: A. D.
31,920 The plays were published with a preface titled The Infidel Half
Century, and first performed in 1922 by the New York Theatre Guild at
the Garrick Theatre.
BERNARD SHAW was born in Dublin in 1856. Although essentially shy, he
created the persona of G. B. S., the showman, satirist,
controversialist, critic, pundit, wit, intellectual buffoon and
dramatist. Commentators brought a new adjective into English: Shavian,
a term used to embody all his brilliant qualities.
After his arrival in London in 1876 he became an active Socialist
and a brilliant platform speaker. He wrote on many social aspects of
the day: on Common Sense about the War (1914), How to Settle
the Irish Question (1917) and The Intelligent Woman s Guide
to Socialism and Capitalism (1928). He undertook his own
education at the British Museum and consequently became keenly
interested in cultural subjects. Thus his prolific output included
music, art and theatre reviews, which were collected into several
volumes such as Music in London 1890 1894 (3 vols, 1931);
Pen Portraits and Reviews (1931); and Our Theatres in the
Nineties (3 vols, 1931). He also wrote five novels and some
shorter fiction, including The Black Girl in Search of God and Some
Lesser Tales and Cashel Byron s Profession, both
published in Penguin s Bernard Shaw Library.
He conducted a strong attack on the London theatre and was closely
associated with the intellectual revival of British theatre. His plays
fall into several categories: Plays Pleasant ; Plays Unpleasant ;
comedies; chronicle-plays; metabiological Pentateuch (Back to
Methuselah, a series of plays); and political extravaganzas .
Bernard Shaw died in 1950.
