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	Topics Back to Methuselah Topic Home *Back to Methuselah (A Metabiological Pentateuch)* is a 1921 series of five plays and a preface by George Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw Bernard Shaw was an Anglo-Irish playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925 and an Academy Award for ... . The five plays are: In the Beginning: B.C. 4004 (In the Garden of Eden) The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas: Present Day The Thing Happens: A.D. 2170 Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman: A.D. 3000 As Far as Thought Can Reach: A.D. 31,920 The plays were published with a preface titled The Infidel Half Century, and first performed in 1922 by the New York Theatre Guild at the old in New York and was revived in 1958 at the Ambassador TheatreAmbassador Theatre Ambassador Theatre can refer to:* Ambassador Theatre... . Plot The plays concern themselves with immortality. Adam and Eve lose immortality in the first play, in the second the Brothers Barnabas decide to live for more than 200 years, in the third everybody begins to live much longer. In Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman we see an ordinary mortal meeting the immortals in Ireland, where a group of venal politicians have come to seek advice from an oracle, and in As Far as Thought Can Reach life gives up the material plane altogether. Though out of fashion now, the plays described by Michael HolroydMichael Holroyd Michael Holroyd is a biographer, born in London and educated at Eton College.... as "a masterpiece of wishful thinking" represents Shaw's only real engagement with science fictionScience fiction Overview Science fiction is a popular genre of fiction in which the narrative world differs from our own present or historical reali... . However, one of Shaw's last plays, Farfetched Fables (1950) is also science fiction.rding to Louis Crompton in Shaw the Dramatist (pp. 252-3): "The most extensive scholarly treatment of Back to Methuselah is H. M. Geduld's six-volume variorum edition of the play submitted as a doctoral thesis at Birkbeck College, University of LondonBirkbeck, University of London name =Birkbeck, University of London... (1961). This thesis, which runs to fourteen hundred pages, includes a discussion of the intellectual and literary background, a collation of some forty editions of the text, annotations to the five parts, preface and postscript, and an account of the theatrical history of the play." Copies of this variorum edition are available in the Goldsmiths Library in the University of London, the Lilly Library at Indiana UniversityIndiana University Indiana University, founded in 1820, is a nine-campus university system in the state of Indiana.... , Bloomington, IndianaBloomington, Indiana Bloomington is a city in south central Indiana.... , and in the Rare Books Collection of the University of Texas at AustinUniversity of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin, often called UT or Texas, is the flagship institution of the University of Te... . A paraphrase of the following quote from Back to Methuselah is frequently to Robert F. KennedyRobert F. Kennedy Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also called "RFK", was one of two younger brothers of President John F.... , even though Kennedy stated that he was quoting Shaw: External links Link to Text at Project Gutenberg Full text of Back to Methuselah in Wikisource