"Shaw's Corner"
Snt—Derek Hudson, in a review of Shaw's Corner, states that Bernard Shaw " listed a number of serious errors" in my previous volume. Perhaps your reviewer may care to let me know if he has taken the trouble to verify these errors and -whether, if they actually exist, they are as serious as all that. The only error he will find after the closest scrutiny is a caption to a photograph, and this caption was given to me by Bernard Shaw himself. Then why, you may well ask, did G.B.S. invent errors ? The answer is truthfully told . in his own words in Shaw's Corner. Even if the, errors were in the book, they were not -a, serious reflection on the ultimate veracity of the re;:ordi they were of such a trivial nature that they only scratched the surface. While G.B.S. played the fool with the public, he wrote to me that " there were no errors worth mentioning."
I feel highly flattered that your reviewer found the book full of sprightly amusing talk and hat I was only a slightly distorting miTror. Believe me, he was the greatest distorter of himself; and to haVe reduced him almost to human proportions was indeed an -achievement: As everyone.knows, the public Shaw was an entirely different person from the private Shaw I knew so well, and that is why perhaps I--felt the compulsion to write the two volumes. The fact that my friend admired my art and welcomed my portraiture was good enough for me. If I may say so, future biographers may rely absolutely on the information revealed in my books. Thousands upon thousands have read my Days with Bernard Shaw, the first of the volumes; I have received many letters, some from his friends of long standing, and -apart from the caption referred to, no errors have been pointed out to-me. -1 took the same trouble over Shaw's Corner. it was not written hurriedly and I deliberately prevented it being published too near his death. Although the blurb was not composed by me and I did not see it until the book was published, I think it gives a very fair estimate of my effort —Yours
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