The Magician

In 1897 after spending five years at St Thomass Hospital I passed the examinations which enabled me to practise medicine. While still a medical student I had published a novel called Liza of Lambeth which caused a mild sensation and on the strength of that I rashly decided to abandon doctoring and earn my living as a writer; so as soon as I was qualified I set out for Spain and spent the best part of a year in Seville. I amused myself hugely and wrote a bad novel. Then I returned to London and with a friend of my own age took and furnished a small flat near Victoria Station. A maid of all work cooked for us and kept the flat neat and tidy. My friend was at the Bar and so I had the day (and the flat) to myself and my work. During the next six years I wrote several novels and a number of plays. Only one of these novels had any success but even that failed to make the stir that my first one had made. I could get no manager to take my plays. At last in desperation I sent one which I called A Man of Honour to the Stage Society which gave two performances one on Sunday night another on Monday afternoon of plays which unsuitable for the commercial theatre were considered of sufficient merit to please an intellectual audience. As every one knows it was the Stage Society that produced the early plays of Bernard Shaw.