ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

THE ADMIRABLE BASHVILLE
OR, CONSTANCY UNREWARDED
BEING THE NOVEL OF CASHEL
BYRON'S PROFESSION DONE INTO A
STAGE PLAY IN THREE ACTS AND
IN BLANK VERSE . WITH A NOTE
ON MODERN PRIZEFIGHTING . BY
BERNARD SHAW

[Illustration]

BRENTANO'S . NEW YORK
MCMXIII

This play has been publicly performed within the United Kingdom. It is
entered at Stationers' Hall and The Library of Congress, U. S. A.

_Copyright, 1901, by Herbert S. Stone and Company_

_Copyright, 1907, by Bernard Shaw_

All rights reserved

PREFACE

The Admirable Bashville is a product of the British law of copyright. As
that law stands at present, the first person who patches up a stage
version of a novel, however worthless and absurd that version may be,
and has it read by himself and a few confederates to another confederate
who has paid for admission in a hall licensed for theatrical
performances, secures the stage rights of that novel, even as against
the author himself; and the author must buy him out before he can touch
his own work for the purposes of the stage.

A famous case in point is the drama of East Lynne, adapted from the late
Mrs. Henry Wood's novel of that name. It was enormously popular, and is
still the surest refuge of touring companies in distress. Many authors
feel that Mrs. Henry Wood was hardly used in not getting any of the
money which was plentifully made in this way through her story. To my
mind, since her literary copyright probably brought her a fair wage for
the work of writing the book, her real grievance was, first, that her
name and credit were attached to a play with which she had nothing to
do, and which may quite possibly have been to her a detestable travesty
and profanation of her story; and second, that the authors of that play
had the legal power to prevent her from having any version of her own
performed, if she had wished to make one.

There is only one way in which the author can protect himself; and that
is by making a version of his own and going through the same legal
farce with it. But the legal farce involves the hire of a hall and the
payment of a fee of two guineas to the King's Reader of Plays. When I
wrote Cashel Byron's Profession I had no guineas to spare, a common
disability of young authors. What is equally common, I did not know the
law. A reasonable man may guess a reasonable law, but no ma