Shaw in 1898

A Bernard Shaw Chronology

by A. M. Gibbs

Perhaps the most complete guide to the factual details of Shaw’s daily life and its historical

context are to be found not in biographies but in the sort of day-to-day account we find

in A. M. Gibbs’ Chronology, which was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2001. Professor Gibbs

has written a biography of Shaw as well, Bernard Shaw: A Life, published by the University Press

of Florida in 2005, and the two compared illustrate the difference between the two genres,

biography having far more interest in interpreting the facts than in mainly reporting them, in, as

Gibbs says in his “Introduction” to his biography, coming “to grips with the man and his inner life

and personality,” rather than, as he says in his “Introduction” to the Chronology, in providing an

“Everybody’s Shavian What Was When and Who Was Who.” Recently the Chronology has been

issued by Palgrave as an eBook, the opening pages of which, focused on Shaw’s “Ancestry and

Highly recommended, along with Stanley Weintraub’s Bernard Shaw: The Diaries, 1885-1897, to

researchers interested in getting their facts straight. Bernard Shaw: A Life is now available as an

Bernard Shaw: A Life is now available as an inexpensive ebook at http://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Shaw-Life-Florida-ebook/dp/B00PKGNDQM/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-2&qid=1416422904