biography
| name: |
Shaw, George Bernard
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1856–1950)
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| biography:
| Playwright, essayist, and pamphleteer, born in Dublin, Ireland. In 1876 he left office-work in Ireland and moved to London, UK. In 1882 he turned to 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 to write 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 passionately 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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