Identification points are listed only where two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 3 Nov 2026.
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Shaw's five-part play cycle, subtitled A Metabiological Pentateuch, was published in 1921 by Constable and Co. in London, with Brentano's issuing an American edition in New York the same year. The two separate easily by imprint and collation: library records give the Constable book as xci, 267 pages, 18 cm, while the Brentano's edition runs to ciii, 300 pages. Constable kept the book in print for decades, so check the title page date and its verso for any reprint or new edition notice. Penguin paperbacks are later.
We have not yet confirmed the issue points that tell this first impression from later ones. Until we do, compare your copy's title page and copyright page with the publisher, place and year above: any later printing or edition statement means it is not this one.
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Constable, London, in 1921, in hardback.
Points of issue are listed only where at least two independent sources agree. Last reviewed 3 November 2026. Reviewed by Harriet Ellis; read how we check facts.
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