George Roberts (publisher) George Roberts (publisher) George Roberts (1873–1953) was an Irish actor, poet and publisher. He was born in Belfast and became an actor with the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. He co-founded the publishing house of Maunsel and Company with Stephen Gwynn and Joseph Maunsel Hone. This firm published works by W. B. Yeats, John Millington Synge, Lady Gregory, George William Russell, James Stephens, Douglas Hyde and others and became part of the Irish Literary Revival. Between 1909 and 1912, when he visited Dublin, Joyce negotiated with Roberts to publish his book Dubliners, but their contract was not fulfilled, owing to a series
George Bernard Shaw a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter. Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy "The Young Idea" on "You Never Can Tell" and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of "Murder in the