Between 1879 and 1883 the five novels were written—one each year. The first was, "with merciless fitness," called Immaturity.
It was declined by all the publishers, including Chapman and Hall, whose reader, George Meredith, wrote "No" on it. The manuscript was thrown aside and nibbled by mice, but "even the mice failed to finish it." The Irrational Knot, Love Among the Artists, Cashel Byron's Profession and An Unsocial Socialist proved equally un acceptable, and it was not until after he had made many friends in advanced political and humanitarian circles that they were printed as padding in propagandist magazines.
In 1882, when Bernard Shaw was 26 and the author of four un published books, he attended a public meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon street, London, which was addressed by Henry George on the subject of land nationalization. George believed that the social ills of mankind would be cured by the nationaliza tion of land, or single tax; all other forms of capital could safely be left in private possession. Shaw resolved to join in George's campaign, but he did not long remain in it, for, on proceeding from a study of George's Progress and Poverty to Marx's Capital he became a Socialist and demanded the nationalization of all forms of capital, a demand which was repugnant to George. In this campaign Shaw made a number of firm friendships—with James Leigh Joynes, Sydney Olivier (later Lord Olivier), Henry, Hyde Champion, the Rev. Stewart D. Headlam, Henry S. Salt and his wife, William Morris, Annie Besant, Edward Carpenter and Sidney and Beatrice Webb.
Propaganda magazines inevitably followed in the trail of these friends, and in one of them, printed by Champion and called To-day, An Unsocial Socialist and Cashel Byron's Profession were serialised. To-day died, and was succeeded by Our Corner, pub lished by Mrs. Besant, with whom Shaw had become acquainted about the time that he joined the Fabian Society, a society of Socialists founded in 1884. The Irrational Knot and Love Among the Artists were serialised in this magazine. It, too, died. Cashel Byron's Profession had an artistic, but not a popular success. Stevenson was enraptured by it, and Henley wanted to make a play out of it. Shaw himself, some years afterwards, burlesqued it for the stage under the name of The Admirable Bashville, in excellent blank verse.
It was abundantly clear in these novels, written after the style of the 18th century authors, that narrative was not the form in which Shaw could best express himself. He ran to dialogue rather than to description or to narrative, and his characters on any or no provocation uttered long speeches that read like plat form deliveries rather than conversation. The story was always
a poor one when there was any story at all; the author was not fastidious about the peg on which he hung his opinions. He shared with Shakespeare a willingness to use any plot that would serve his purpose. But he could not continue to use a form which was intractable in his hands, and so, after many diversions and adventures in search of a suitable instrument, he turned to the stage. It may here be said, however, that the novels were a prep aration for the plays. Much of what is in the former, was re used in the latter. The hatred of hypocrisy and pretentious re spectability and irrational social cleavages and stupefying poverty and every kind of organised priestcraft, whether of the law or the church or of medicine or of politics, which he acquired in Dublin as a boy and a youth, was poured into his novels and distilled from them into his plays. Ann Whitefield, who takes the initia tive in the sex duel with John Tanner in Man and Superman, is descended from Madge Brailsford who hunts down Owen Jack in Love Among the Artists. The conclusion of Love Among the Artists, as Julius Bab has pointed out, is almost identical in situation and words with the conclusion of Candida.
His fortunes now began to mend. He criticised books for the Pall Mall Gazette and pictures for The World. He was appointed musical critic of the Star, under the pseudonym of "Corno di Bassetto," but he presently transferred himself in the same ca pacity to The World, in which he made his initials G.B.S. familiar to the public. Later on he acted as dramatic critic of The Saturday Review. During this period of critical activity, however, he was arduously engaged in his political propaganda. Henry George's Progress and Poverty diverted his attention from the so-called controversies between science and religion to political economy, .to which he devoted several years of study; Karl Marx's Das Kapital, which he read in French, completed his disillusion with capitalistic civilisation. He took up public speaking and inces santly addressed "audiences of every description, from university dons to London washerwomen. From 1883 to 1895, with virtually no exception, he delivered a harangue with debate, questions, and so on every Sunday—sometimes twice or even thrice—and on a good many weekdays. This teeming and tumultuous life was passed on many platforms, from the British Association to the triangle at the corner of Salmon's lane in Limehouse." He was now a most active member of the Fabian Society, which he joined in 1884, and was the author of its second and third tracts.