WLA Literary Awards Committee

The Banta Award 1981
Bernard Shaw and the Actresses
by Margot Peters
Doubleday, 1980

The 1981 Banta Award BOOK

Shaw's relationships with his mother, sister, wife and such legends of the theater as Ellen Terry and Mrs. Campbell are studied in this major work.

The impact of women in general, actresses specifically, is the theme of the book. All effected in practical as well as emotional ways, the shaping of the great female roles to be found in Shaw's writings.

In this chronological multiple biography, Shaw's inconsistencies and foibles are clearly defined without detracting in any way from his genius.

Ms. Peters presents Shaw: the "ladies' tailor", the philanderer, the lover, the feminist, the hero and the puritan.

While Shaw is the focus of the book, Margot Peters proves that the women themselves forged their own future and transformed the theater of the 1890's from actor-manager domination to the democratic repertory theater of modern times.

In addition to the Banta Award, Bernard Shaw and the Actresses has received the Council for Wisconsin Writers Award for scholarly work and the George R. Freedley Award from the Theater Library Association of New York for the 1980 best book on drama.

The AUTHOR
Margot Peters

Margot Peters was born in Wausau, the daughter of Edgar McCullough and his wife, Elsie, a journalist.

Her B.A., M.A. and Ph. D in Victorian literature were earned at the University of Wisconsin.

Ms. Peters is now a professor of English at UW-Whitewater.

Although these statistics indicate that her life has been closely allied to her home state, the nature of her writing has caused her to spend much time in other parts of the world. For Charlotte Bronte: Style in the Novel, 1973, and Unquiet Soul: a Biography of Charlotte Bronte, 1975, Ms. Peters traveled to Haworth and the Yorkshire moors. The extensive research required to write Bernard Shaw and the Actresses involved many divergent locations, among them were his home Shaw's Corners, Ayot St. Lawrence and the University of Texas, a major repository for Shaw's papers.

Margot Peters' home is in Lake Mills: a one hundred year old house furnished in a style which reflects her deep interest in the Victorian period.

Her belief that women and their accomplishments must be made visible was the motive for approaching Shaw's career from the viewpoint of the actresses who contributed to it. She hopes to write more biographies of women, for the same reason.

WLA Literary Awards Commitee