Introduction

This book considers the interior authors of Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf and examines the nexus of modernism and censorship in one facet of their respective plays and novels: their creation of characters who either self-censor their own work or who are censored by their fellow characters. Against the dialectic of censorship and modernism that shaped the work of Shaw and Woolf, their fictional authors may be considered as reflections of their creators and their milieu. Additionally, in many instances, these Shavian and Woolfian authors mirror a more personal aspect of these renowned writers: their preoccupation with their authorial selves, especially in relation to other writers, as each play or novel examines the artist’s responsibility as a creator, as an establisher of order, or as a reformer of morals (John A. Bertolini, The Playwriting Self of Bernard Shaw.