An Unsocial Socialist
London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowery & Co., 1887. First Edition, First Issue. Crown 8vo, 7 3/8 x 5 inches (188 x 126 mm); [4] 256 pp.; original red cloth, stamped in gilt on spine and covers, a little rubbed and soiled, spine slightly faded, hinges weak; dark brown endpapers; foxing on first 2 and last 2 sheets. First edition, first issue with "Author of The Confessions of Byron Cashel's Profession etc. etc." to title and no appendix. Ink inscription of Mrs Walter Crane on half title.
[Broad, p. 87; Magill p. 965].
This is Shaw's first published novel. It had been serialized in "To-Day, A Monthly Magazine of Scientific Socialism" between March and December of 1884. This printing was promptly canceled, and supposedly only samples for booksellers and travelers had been sent out with this title-page.
Having attended a meeting by political economist Henry George in September 1882, Shaw became fascinated with Socialism, read Marx and became a member of the Fabian Society in September 1884, writing their first manifesto later that year. He believed in a more moderate, non-violent form of socialism and believed that socialist ideals could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. In the early 1880s Shaw also began his literary career by writing music and art criticism and began writing novels, of which An Unsocial Socialist was the first published. But as his career as a playwright started taking off in the latter part of that decade, his political activities also decreased.
Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s. [Griffith, Gareth. Socialism and Superior Brains: The Political Thought of George Bernard Shaw. London: Routledge, 1993].
The story centers on Sidney Trefusis, a millionaire socialist, who leaves his bride on their wedding day because he fears his passion for her will get in the way of his plans to overthrow the British government. Sidney vanished "underground"--Disguises himself as a common laborer called "Mengels"--and infiltrates Alton College, a girl's school where well-bred young women are "fitted and fatted to be put on the marriage market". His plan: take over the school and plant the seed of radical socialism into the fertile brains of the future consorts of cabinet ministers and kings. What he doesn't plan on is the presence of one Agatha Wylie, a sixth-form rabble-rouser, who falls hopelessly in love with both Sidney and his politics, and just happens to be his deserted wife's cousin. Love triangles, mistaken identities, Marx, Engels, pistols and the proletariat jostle for position. (via LibraryThing)
An unusual ASSOCIATION COPY with ink inscription and address of "Mrs Walter Crane" [ie Mary Crane] on the half title. Walter Crane married Mary Andrews in 1871 and after a sojourn in Rome returned to London in 1873 living first in Wood End and then at Beaumont Lodge, Shepherd's Bush (the address she has written in this book). In 1914 Mary Crane was found dead on a railway track at Kingsnorth in Kent, apparently having committed suicide. Walter Crane was devastated and died just 3 months later. Walter Crane and Shaw were closely associated through the Arts and Crafts movement and the Fabian Society. On p.65 the author writes "Don't lose heart, ladies" said Smilash. "She may be drowned or murdered for all we know. Anyone may send a telegram in a false name. Perhaps it's a plant. Let's hope for your sakes that some little accident - on the railway for instance - may happen yet." Considering the nature of Mary Crane's probable suicide this foretelling is particularly ominous.
Condition: Good.
Item number: 454
Price: $4,000.00
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