An Unsocial Socialist

From 1879 to 1883, before he turned to writing plays, Shaw wrote five novels. An Unsocial Socialist, the last written, concerns the activities of one Sidney Trefusis, a rich Marxist whom women find completely exasperating, or irresistible, or both, and who has definite ideas about reforming personal and political relationships. Shaw develops a plot that overturns the pieties of the middle class—including the expectations of the novel-reader—and in so doing suggests some new structures for both society and literature.