Bernard Shaw was twenty-four and Sidney Webb twenty-one when they met in October 1880 at a gathering of a debating club called the Zetetical Society. Having sympathetic interests, both men decided, after some personal and joint exploration, to devote their lives to improving the human condition. This collection of 140 annotated letters, 74 of which have never been published, documents the subsequent friendship and collaboration shared by Shaw, Webb, and Webb's wife Beatrice, throughout their lives.


The letters, written between 1883 and 1946, discuss the founding of the Fabian Society, the British Labour Party, the London School of Economics, and the New Statesman through the Boer, First, and Second World Wars. Fully annotated with headnotes and footnotes, this collection will expand the general view of Shaw the dramatist to incorporate Shaw the political activist and lifelong friend of the Webbs.