"If Bernard Shaw anglicized the Übermensch, it was H. G. Wells, W. B. Yeats and Edwin Muir who arguably took him most seriously. Other writers, it is true, flirted with the idea without taking it or themselves at all seriously; thus James Joyce, being rather in the doldrums of 1903/4, found it satisfying to think of himself as "James Overman" (as he ironically signed himself) … Yeats, Wells and Muir were all fascinated by the idea, but rejected it for moral (Yeats) or political (Wells) reasons, or for a mixture of both (Muir). In short, the superman-idea filled a short-term emotional need; the events of 1914-18 destroyed not only Nietzsche‎‎'s reputation in this country, but the world of which his myths had been a part."