Note 79 — Chapter VI

In 1888 Shaw wrote two very clever articles, which so far seem to have escaped attention, although the disguise is so thin as to be negligible. These two articles are, respectively, My Friend Fitzthunder, the Unpractical Socialist, by Redbarn Wash—note the anagram—(To-Day, edited by Hubert Bland, August, 1888), and Fitzthunder on Himself—A Defence, by Robespierre Marat Fitzthunder (To-Day, September, 1888). These very amusing papers, both written by Shaw, it is needless to say, constitute a reductio ad absurdum of the unpractical and revolutionary Socialist; Fitzthunder is evidently a composite picture, made up from a number of Shaw's Socialist confrères.