Gibbs, A.M. 1933- (Anthony Matthews Gibbs)

PERSONAL:

Born January 21, 1933, in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia; son of John Frederick Lloyd (a manager) and Stella T. Gibbs; married Jillian Irving Holden, 1960 (divorced); married Donna Patricia Lucy, 1983; children: Samuel Lloyd, James Matthews Irving. Education: University of Melbourne, B.A. (honors), 1955; Magdalen College, Oxford, B.A., 1959, M.A., 1970, B.Litt., 1970. Hobbies and other interests: Theater, bicycling, cooking.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Turramurra, New South Wales, Australia. Office—School of English and Linguistics, Macquarie University, North Ryde 2113, New South Wales, Australia.

CAREER:

Writer, literary scholar, editor, administrator, and educator. University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, lecturer in English, 1960-66; University of Leeds, Leeds, England, lecturer in English, 1966-69; University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, professor of English and head of department, 1969-75; Macquarie University, North Ryde, New South Wales, professor of English and head of School of English and Linguistics, 1975-98, emeritus professor, 1998—.

MEMBER:

International Association for the Study of Anglo-Irish Literature (member of executive committee), English Association, Australian Universities Languages and Literature Association, Achilles Club (Oxford), Australian Academy of the Humanities (vice president, 1988-89, editor, 1989-93), International Shaw Society (founding member of council).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Rhodes scholar, 1956-59; fellow, Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1982—; Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award, 2007.

WRITINGS:

Shaw, Oliver & Boyd, 1969.

(Editor) Sir William Davenant: The Shorter Poems, and Songs from the Plays and Masques, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1972.

Art and Action in Hamlet, English Association (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), 1977.

The Art and Mind of Shaw: Essays in Criticism, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1983.

(Editor) The Relevance of the Humanities, Australian Academy of the Humanities (Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia), 1990.

(Editor) Shaw: Interviews and Recollections, University of Iowa Press (Iowa City, IA), 1990.

(Editor) Masks of Time: Drama and Its Contexts, Australian Academy of the Humanities (Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia), 1994.

Hartbreak House: Preludes of Apocalypse, Twayne (New York, NY), 1994.

A Bernard Shaw Chronology, Palgrave (New York, NY), 2001.

Bernard Shaw: A Life, University Press of Florida (Gainesville), 2005.

Contributor of articles on Bernard Shaw, W.B. Yeats, and Australian literature to various periodicals.

Southern Review (Australia), founding coeditor, 1963-64, member of corresponding committee, 1965—.

SIDELIGHTS:

A writer, editor, and educator, A.M. Gibbs is a literary scholar and expert on the works of Victorian-era Irish dramatist, critic, and author George Bernard Shaw. Emeritus Professor of English at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, Gibbs spent a career exploring and analyzing Shaw's many influential works and delving into the minutiae of the playwright's life. In A Bernard Shaw Chronology, Gibbs traces his subject's activities in painstaking detail, providing a chronological account of Shaw's life with almost-daily precision. "Daunting as it is to imagine tracing, almost on a daily basis, the social, political, and literary activities of Shaw's super-productive ninety-four years, it has been done in A Bernard Shaw Chronology, observed Michel W. Pharand in English Literature in Transition 1880-1920. Gibbs "has made a vital contribution to Shaw studies with this indispensable reference guide," Pharand concluded.

Turning to a more traditional biographical style, Gibbs focuses further on Shaw in Bernard Shaw: A Life. Readers familiar with Gibbs's other works on Shaw "will not be surprised at how well Gibbs has done his job here with his fresh, good-humored, magnificently sane, and revelatory traversal of one of the most entertaining and fascinating literary lives of the modern era," commented John A. Bertolini in English Literature in Transition 1880-1920. Gibbs ranges widely throughout Shaw's life, exploring the man's politics, personal life, work habits, and more. Gibbs does not avoid criticizing elements of Shaw's thinking, including his support for socialism and Soviet communism, and his sympathetic responses to figures such as Hitler and Stalin. However, Gibbs places Shaw's attitudes in context, and in doing so, "gives us another Shaw, the private Shaw, the man of principle, the generous, gallant, kind Shaw, almost unique among artists for his lack of venality," Bertolini noted. Gibbs also works to correct misconceptions about Shaw that have appeared in the works of previous biographers, and even seeks to set right the record of Shaw's own sometimes-exaggerated tales of his youth and development. "Scholars of theatre, of literature, and of Shaw will benefit from the addition of this impressively researched and engaging work to their library," remarked Michael M. O'Hara, writing in Theatre History Studies. Gibbs offers "invaluable insights into previously unrecognized echoes of Shaw's life in his work, and in doing so in a single volume without sacrificing detail, Gibbs has performed a great service to readers," stated Victorian Studies reviewer Christopher Innes. Booklist critic Bryce Christensen deemed Gibbs's book "a provocative reappraisal of a canonical writer," while Library Journal contributor Nancy R. Ives called it a "lively and informative scholarly reference."

Gibbs told CA: "My interest in Shaw has been a longstanding one. I value him for the breadth and humanity of his comic vision, and for the robust yet subtle engagement of his drama with political and social issues. William Davenant interests me as a poet (despite the unevenness of his performance) and as an innovator in matters of literary taste and in theatrical modes."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 1, 2005, Bryce Christensen, review of Bernard Shaw: A Life, p. 17.

Choice, December, 2001, W.S. Brockman, review of A Bernard Shaw Chronology, p. 661; April, 2006, H.I. Einsohn, review of Bernard Shaw, p. 1403.

English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, winter, 2002, Michel W. Pharand, review of A Bernard Shaw Chronology, p. 111; spring, 2007, John A. Bertolini, review of Bernard Shaw, p. 210.

Irish Literary Supplement, spring, 2002, review of A Bernard Shaw Chronology, p. 28; spring, 2007, Richard F. Dietrich, "Revisiting GBS," review of Bernard Shaw, p. 15.

Library Journal, September 15, 2005, Nancy R. Ives, review of Bernard Shaw, p. 65.

London Review of Books, September 21, 2006, "Ticket to Milford Haven," review of Bernard Shaw, p. 11.

Overland, autumn, 2006, Michael Wilding, "A New Life for Shaw," review of Bernard Shaw, p. 81.

Publishers Weekly, September 12, 2005, review of Bernard Shaw, p. 54.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 2001, review of A Bernard Shaw Chronology, p. 229.

Theatre History Studies, annual, 2007, Michael M. O'Hara, review of Bernard Shaw, p. 143.

Times Higher Education Supplement, March 23, 2007, Ivan Wise, "He Shot from the Quip," review of Bernard Shaw, p. 24.

Times Literary Supplement, July 21, 2006, Roy Foster, "All the Beauties," review of Bernard Shaw, p. 13.

Victorian Studies, winter, 2007, Christopher Innes, review of Bernard Shaw, p. 374.

ONLINE

University Press of Florida Web site,http://www.upf.com/ (November 19, 2007), brief information on the author.