Books: A Man of Wealth & Very Old

SIXTEEN SELF SKETCHES (207 pp.)—Bernard Shaw—Dodd, Mead ($3.50).

FABIAN ESSAYS (246 pp.)—Macmillan ($3.50).

DAYS WITH BERNARD SHAW (327 pp.)—Stephen Winsten—Vanguard ($3.75).

The year: 1857; the place: Dublin's Synge Street. Mrs. Lucinda Shaw has gone off on a visit to County Galway, leaving her one-year-old son George Bernard (known as "Bob") in care of his father, George Carr Shaw, co-partner in the respectable grain firm of Clibborn & Shaw. Naturally, mother Shaw wants to know exactly what catastrophes are taking place in her absence, so dutiful father Shaw picks up his pen and briefs her:

July...