Liberty by Tucker, Benjamin R - July 27, 1895: Not the Daughter but the Mother of Order.

[George Bernard Shaw] Tucker, Benjamin R., Liberty, Not the Daughter but the Mother of Order. Vol. XI, No.6, New York, N.Y., July 27, 1895, Whole No. 318. A single issue. 12 pages. This issue has selective general commentary of current events on the front page: the "Debs insurrection" in Chicago, a new anti-trust law in Texas and Balfour's "Quixotic attacks on the evolutionary philosophy of life" among them. This issue is important for the long review-article by George Bernard Shaw to Tucker about Max Nordau, which bears the title, "A Degenerate's View of Nordau," a twenty-six column article (three columns to a page.) An article by Tucker, "Voluntary State Socialism," Stephen T. Byington's "Anarchist Letter-Writing Corps," "Expert Reasoning" by Henri Rochefort from L'Intransigeant and a humorous excerpt from Le Figaro about increasing tax on alcoholic beverages. The last page, page 12, is a page of advertisements for Tucker's publications.

Shaw's long review-article on Nordau is comprehensive and includes mentions of Whistler, Burne-Jones, Liszt, Wilde, Ibsen, Wagner and Monet, among others. Not one to mince words, Shaw begins his letter-article to Tucker: "I have read Max Nordau's 'Degeneration' at your request, --- two hundred and sixty thousand mortal words, saying the same thing over and over again. That, as you know, is the way to drive a thing into the mind of the world, though Nordau considers it a symptom of insane 'obsession' on the part of writers who do not share his own opinions. His message to the world is that all our characteristically modern works of art are symptoms of disease in the artists, and that these diseased artists are themselves symptoms of the nervous exhaustion of the race by overwork." This is the first edition of Shaw's famous statement on the sanity of art and the creative impulse of the artist. It was republished as a pamphlet in 1908. Condition very good.