TLS signed “G. Bernard Shaw,” two pages, 8 x 10, January 8, 1918. Letter to English writer and journalist Douglas Goldring, care of Maunsel & Co., in part: "The libraries, being private commercial concerns, are quite within their rights. They are no more bound to buy your book and put it in their libraries than The Times was to publish Lord Lansdowne's letter. The nation has no right to interfere: all it can do is to keep its own libraries open to you; and this it does. Incidentally, whoever, you, as author, are damaged by the action of the libraries. So is your publisher. Neither of you would be likely to succeed in an action; for the Courts will not take a view that would lead to a hatter suing you for not buying his hats, or a wholesaler suing a retailer for not putting his goods in the shop window…No doubt you are aware that the difficulty is not a new one. I was for ten years on the Managing Committee of the Society of Authors; and yours is very far from being the first case. The others began with a great deal of hot air, appeals to liberty of the press, denunciations of tyranny and so forth; but they all came down to the hard facts as I have put them." Shaw makes several corrections to the text in his own hand. In fine condition, with a filing hole to the upper left corners.Format: TLS