Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw. A Correspondence. Edited by Christopher St. John by Shaw, George Bernard, 1856-1950. Terry, Ellen, 1848-1928. St. John, Christopher, editor

NY, Putnam's Sons / Knickerbocker Press, 1932. Hard Cover. xxx, 334 p., 24 cm. "Shortly after the death of Ellen Terry, her executors contemplated the publication of a volume of her letters, and appealed to her numerous distinguished correspondents to supply copies of those they had preserved. Mr Bernard Shaw, who had a very large number, sent them for selection. They were found to throw much light on the inner history of the London stage at the end of the last century, and to possess such rare personal quality, that search was at once made for Mr Shaw's replies. Fortunately, many of them had been preserved. When fitted into their proper order the result was a correspondence unique in the annals of the theatre, and with very few parallels in the literature formed by the scant records we possess of the intimacies of well-known public characters. Unlike many such correspondences, the letters were evidently written without a thought of their possible publication; and their publication therefore becomes an act of that supreme justice to the memory of a great actress which consists in letting her be seen as she never dreamt of showing herself, and indeed could not without impertinence have shown herself, except to those friends from whom she had no secrets and with whom she could drop her public work of making the heroines of romance seem real and living. This consideration overcame all the difficulties in the way of publication; and Mr Shaw consented to contribute the preface with which this volume opens to clear up the situation in which the correspondence began." Red cloth; no dj, ink owner name, VG; another copy, the same, with dj for The Shaw-Terry Letters. Stock#33239x.