George Bernard Shaw Biography

Playwright, essayist, and pamphleteer, born in Dublin, Ireland. In 1876 he left office-work in Ireland and moved to London, England. In 1882 he found socialism, joined the committee of the Fabian Society, and became known as a journalist, writing music and drama criticism, and publishing critical essays.

He began writing plays in 1885, and among his early successes were Arms and the Man (1894), Candida (1897), and The Devil's Disciple (1897). There followed Man and Superman (1905), Major Barbara (1905), The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), and several others, displaying an increasing range of subject matter. Later plays include the "religious pantomime' Androcles and the Lion (1912), and the "anti-romantic' comedy Pygmalion (1913), adapted as the musical play My Fair Lady, in 1956 (filmed, 1964). After World War 1 followed Heartbreak House (1919), Back to Methuselah (1921), and Saint Joan (1923).

He wrote over 40 plays, and continued to write them even in his 90s. He was also keenly interested in the question of spelling reform, wrote most of his own work in shorthand, and left money in his will for the devising of a new English alphabet on phonetic principles (which came to be called Shavian). In 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

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Quotes:

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."

"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity."

"If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience?" -- George Bernard Shaw

"The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me." -- George Bernard Shaw, The Philanderer (1898), Act II

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