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Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - Great George Street, Westminster, is the address of Doyle and Broadbent, civil engineers. On the threshold one reads that the firm consists of Mr Lawrence Doyle and Mr Thomas Broadbent, and that their rooms are on the first floor. Most of their rooms are private; for the partners, being bachelors and bosom friends, live there; and the door marked Private, next the clerks' office, is their domestic sitting room as well as their…mehr

Produktbeschreibung
Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - Great George Street, Westminster, is the address of Doyle and Broadbent, civil engineers. On the threshold one reads that the firm consists of Mr Lawrence Doyle and Mr Thomas Broadbent, and that their rooms are on the first floor. Most of their rooms are private; for the partners, being bachelors and bosom friends, live there; and the door marked Private, next the clerks' office, is their domestic sitting room as well as their reception room for clients. Let me describe it briefly from the point of view of a sparrow on the window sill. The outer door is in the opposite wall, close to the right hand corner. Between this door and the left hand corner is a hatstand and a table consisting of large drawing boards on trestles, with plans, rolls of tracing paper, mathematical instruments and other draughts-man's accessories on it. In the left hand wall is the fireplace, and the door of an inner room between the fireplace and our observant sparrow. Against the right hand wall is a filing cabinet, with a cupboard on it, and, nearer, a tall office desk and stool for one person. In the middle of the room a large double writing table is set across, with a chair at each end for the two partners. It is a room which no woman would tolerate, smelling of tobacco, and much in need of repapering, repainting, and recarpeting; but this it the effect of bachelor untidiness and indifference, not want of means; for nothing that Doyle and Broadbent themselves have purchased is cheap; nor is anything they want lacking. On the walls hang a large map of South America, a pictorial advertisement of a steam-ship company, an impressive portrait of Gladstone, and several caricatures of Mr Balfour as a rabbit and Mr Chamberlain as a fox by Francis Carruthers Gould.
Autorenporträt
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950). Irish playwright, author, political activist. George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin 1856. He was sent to various schools in Dublin but developed a great dislike for the formalised education systems and widespread use of corporal punishment which was prevalent at the time. After working as a clerk in Dublin for several years, in 1876, Shaw left for London to join his mother who was living there. In London, he began reading extensively and writing his first novels. He also became increasingly devoted to the ideals of socialism. He joined the Fabian society and became one of its leading writers and activists, inspiring and helping activists such as Annie Besant. With fellow Fabians such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, he helped found the London School of Economics (LSE) after receiving private bequests. In 1898 he married Charlotte Payne Townshend, a fellow Irish Fabian. The marriage was never consummated and they remained childless. In 1906, they moved to Ayot St Lawrence in Hertfordshire, where they lived for the remainder of their lives. By the 1890s, Shaw's plays were being performed in London. The income from his plays enabled him to devote his life to writing. Like his contemporary, Oscar Wilde, Shaw's plays were popular for their biting wit and humour. His plays were in contrast to many Victorian plays which tended to be sentimental, escapist and lacking in satire. Shaw wrote he was influenced by Henrik Ibsen who helped pioneer more realistic modern drama. As a committed Socialist, Shaw infused his plays with his concepts of social justice and issues of class. For example, one of his best known plays Pygmalion (1912-13) (later made into a film and musical My Fair Lady) deals with the class divide which characterised British society at the time. However, to the disappointment of Shaw, his plays were mainly enjoyed as entertainment, rather than political commentary. As well as plays, Shaw wrote novels, short stories and was a noted literary critic. In particular, he was influential in criticising the Victorian preference for performing edited Shakespeare plays. By the start of the First World War, Shaw was a well-known playwright, so his strident opposition to the First World War gained him much criticism. He felt governments had coerced the population into needless wars. In Heartbreak House (1919) he said: "It is said that every people has the Government it deserves. It is more to the point that every Government has the electorate it deserves; for the orators of the front bench can edify or debauch an ignorant electorate at will. Thus our democracy moves in a vicious circle of reciprocal worthiness and unworthiness."