“This original study will no doubt draw attention to St. John Hankin’s work, which may in turn receive further scrutiny from scholars, students, and theatre practitioners.”

Michel Pharand, Queen's University

This book proposes a vibrant intertextual dialogue between St. John Hankin’s manners comedies and what are considered Bernard Shaw’s “minor” Edwardian comedies and, after the war, some of his most experimental “extravagant” plays. Engaging thematic topics ranging from philanthropy and parenting to marital alliances and comic endings, their dramaturgy was truly in conversation over form and content as they re-purposed one another in a vital wrangling to direct the creative evolution of modern British comedy.

Christopher Wixson is Professor of English and Theatre at Eastern Illinois University, USA. His scholarly writing has appeared (in most cases, more than once) in Modern Drama, Studies in English Literature, the Journal of Modern Literature, Comparative Drama, ELT, Notes on Contemporary Literature, Pamphlet, The Harold Pinter Review, SHAW, The Shavian, American Drama, and The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. He is the author of Bernard Shaw and Modern Advertising: Prophet Motives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and Bernard Shaw: A Very Short Introduction (2020). Since 2017, he has served as the general editor of SHAW: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies.