George Bernard Shaw

1856-1950. Highly influential dramatist, novelist, and music critic.

Life

Shaw was born in 1856 in Dublin. Having spent a somewhat unfulfilled youth in Ireland, Shaw moved to London in 1876. He had started writing a few years earlier, but was unable to have any of his first five novels published. In 1884 he joined the Fabian Society, for which he wrote many well-known socialist essays. Furthermore, he began to make a name for himself by writing music reviews for Star Magazine in 1888, as well as drama reviews for the Saturday Review in 1895. Towards the turn of the century, he then began to focus more intensively on writing plays, with which he ultimately made his name. In turn, this led to his earlier works becoming more widely known, too.

Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. And died in 1950.

Significance for 19th-century British culture

Though he hardly ever addressed them explicitly, Shaw indubitably touches upon many cultural issues of the 19th century in his plays. He reflects upon topics such as socialism, class struggle, family structures, prostitution, and vaccination. As his publications cover such a wide variety of subject matter and a lengthy time span, he is said to have influenced the mentality of several generations.

Some of his best-known works:

Mrs Warren's Profession (1898)

Arms and the Man (1898)

Man and Superman (1903)

Pygmalion (1916)

The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928)

Sources

Encyclopaedia Britannica: George Bernard Shaw. Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc: 1976.

Magnusson, Magnus (Ed): Chambers Biographical Dictionary. 5th ed. Edinburgh: W&R Chambers, 1990.