George Bernard Shaw (1856

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Biography

George Bernard Shaw, known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Timeline

The story of George Bernard Shaw, told in moments.

1894 Event

Arms and the Man opens in London and earns his first success as a playwright. He's 38 and has spent a decade writing novels nobody reads, music criticism everybody reads, and Fabian socialist pamphlets. The theater is the thing that sticks.

A decade of novels nobody reads, then theater sticks. Why the stage? Music criticism everybody reads. Were you a better critic than writer?

1913 Event

Writes Pygmalion, a play about a phonetics professor who turns a Cockney flower girl into a society lady. It becomes his most popular work. The 1964 musical adaptation, My Fair Lady, runs 2,717 performances on Broadway.

Pygmalion becoming My Fair Lady. Would the musical delight or horrify you? A phonetics professor and a flower girl. Was class the real subject?

1925 Event

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He calls the prize money "a lifebelt thrown to a swimmer who has already reached the shore." He tries to refuse it. Eventually accepts the medal but donates the money to fund English translations of Swedish literature.

Calling the Nobel 'a lifebelt thrown to a swimmer on shore.' Was that gratitude? Trying to refuse the prize. Were you sincere?

1926 Life

Turns down the money yet again with his famous quip: "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."

Forgiving Nobel for dynamite but not the prize. Was wit your real weapon? Donating the money to Swedish literature translation. Why?

1950 Death

Dies at his home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire, at 94. He fell while pruning a tree in his garden. The resulting hip fracture and kidney failure kill him. He wrote over 60 plays and answered his own mail until the end.

Dying from a fall while pruning a tree at ninety-four. Did you appreciate the absurdity? Over 60 plays and answering your own mail. Was ego the engine?

In Their Own Words (20)

The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school.

Widely attributed to Shaw from the 1970s onward, but not known to exist in his published works. It is in keeping with some of his sardonic statements about the purposes and effectiveness of schools. First known attribution in print is in Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner's Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1971), "G. B. Shaw's line that the only time his education was interrupted was when he was in school captures the sense of this alienation.", 1971

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

Attributed by George Melly in 1962; see "Dancing Is a Perpendicular Expression of a Horizontal Desire", Quote Investigator (11 September 2016), 1962

No public man in these islands ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means; and I have no reason to hope that Mr Coote may be an exception to the rule.

"The Living Pictures", The Saturday Review, LXXIX (April 6, 1895), 443; reprinted in Our Theatres in the Nineties (1932). Vol. 1. London: Constable & Co. 79-86, 1932

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

The Devil's Disciple, Act II (1901), 1901

The novelties of one generation are only the resuscitated fashions of the generation before last.

Three Plays for Puritans, Preface (1900), 1900