Dzhordzh Bernard Shou

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, philosopher, and prose writer, a distinguished critic of his time and, after Shakespeare, the most celebrated playwright writing in English.

He was born on 26 July 1856 in Dublin. Shaw learned nothing from the schools he attended, but he drew much from the books of Charles Dickens, W. Shakespeare, J. Bunyan, the Bible, the Arabic tales of “One Thousand and One Nights,” and also from listening to the operas and oratorios in which his mother sang, and from contemplating the paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland. At the age of fifteen, Shaw took a job as a clerk in a land sales firm. A year later he became a cashier and held that position for four years. Even in his youth Shaw decided to earn his living by writing, and although the articles he sent out were returned with depressing regularity, he continued to besiege the editorial offices. Only one of his articles was accepted for publication, for which he was paid fifteen shillings — and that was all Shaw earned with his pen over nine years. During those years he wrote five novels, all of which were rejected by every English publishing house. In 1884 Shaw joined the Fabian Society and soon became one of its most brilliant speakers. At the same time he furthered his education in the reading room of the British Museum, where he met the writer W. Archer (1856–1924), who introduced him to journalism. After six years devoted to music criticism, Shaw spent three and a half years working as a theatre critic for the Saturday Review. Shaw wrote plays, reviews, and appeared as a street orator, propagandizing socialist ideas, and, in addition, was a member of the municipal council of the borough of St Pancras, where he lived. Such overwork led to a sharp deterioration in his health. In 1901, The Devil’s Disciple, Caesar and Cleopatra, and Captain Brassbound’s Conversion were published in the collection Three Plays for Puritans. Having not succeeded on the commercial stage, Shaw decided to make drama a vehicle for his philosophy, publishing the play Man and Superman in 1903. However, already the following year the young actor H. Granville-Barker (1877–1946), together with the impresario J. E. Vedrenne, took charge of the