The Sanity of Art

2014 paperback edition. Written in 1895, George Bernard Shaw’s "Sanity of Art" essay is a response to Max Nordau’s 1892 book, "Degeneration," which criticized fin de siècle modernist trends by suggesting its practitioners were irrational, amoral, and possibly even insane with neurasthenia. Eschewing conventional morality, Shaw advocates for the right of individuals to decide for themselves the saneness of the maniacal geniuses cultivating the new aesthetic. Cover illustration by James Abbott McNeill Whistler.