Project Gutenberg's How He Lied to Her Husband, by George Bernard Shaw

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: How He Lied to Her Husband

Author: George Bernard Shaw

Posting Date: February 9, 2009 [EBook #3544]
Release Date: November, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND ***

Produced by Eve Sobol

HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND

By George Bernard Shaw

PREFACE

Like many other works of mine, this playlet is a piece d'occasion. In
1905 it happened that Mr Arnold Daly, who was then playing the part of
Napoleon in The Man of Destiny in New York, found that whilst the play
was too long to take a secondary place in the evening's performance, it
was too short to suffice by itself. I therefore took advantage of four
days continuous rain during a holiday in the north of Scotland to write
How He Lied To Her Husband for Mr Daly. In his hands, it served its turn
very effectively.

I print it here as a sample of what can be done with even the most
hackneyed stage framework by filling it in with an observed touch of
actual humanity instead of with doctrinaire romanticism. Nothing in the
theatre is staler than the situation of husband, wife and lover, or the
fun of knockabout farce. I have taken both, and got an original play
out of them, as anybody else can if only he will look about him for his
material instead of plagiarizing Othello and the thousand plays that
have proceeded on Othello's romantic assumptions and false point of
honor.

A further experiment made by Mr Arnold Daly with this play is worth
recording. In 1905 Mr Daly produced Mrs Warren's Profession in New York.
The press of that city instantly raised a cry that such persons as Mrs
Warren are "ordure," and should not be mentioned in the presence
of decent people. This hideous repudiation of humanity and social
conscience so took possession of the New York journalists that the
few among them who kept their feet morally and intellectually could do
nothing to check the epidemic of foul language, gross suggestion,
and raving obscenity of word and thought that broke out. The writers
abandoned all self-restraint under the impression