SHAW'S CORNER

For the last decade of his life George Bernard Shaw had in Stephen Winsten, his neighbor at Ayot St. Lawrence, an ardent Boswell and his minute recording of Shaw's deeds and words, as far as he knew them, have already appeared for the first five years, 1940-45. Here we have the same kind of accounting for the period 1945 until Shaw's death in 1950. Doubtless this detailed and spell-bound itemizing of the aging Shaw's sayings and doings, his witticisms, retorts, inconsistencies, boasts, falterings, senile ravings and occasional simon-pure G.B.S. outbursts afford important Shaviana for the final biographer, the student and the aficionado. And it must be admitted that they are sporadically amusing. However it adds nothing to Shaw's stature; it reveals little not already known and its material is of primary interest to studious researchers intent on evaluation.