Black Lamb

A Week in Literary History

July 26th, 2002

Irish genius and playwright George Bernard Shaw (Man and Superman, 1903) is born in Dublin, 1856. In 1925 he will win the Nobel Prize for literature.

George Bernard Shaw, b. July 26, 1856, d. 1950

Shaw singlehandedly dragged English drama out of its Victorian doldrums and restored its tattered Shakespearean reputation. His plays shine with humor and subtlety, and in his prefaces to them, he shows himself a master of persuasive prose. For almost eighty years, this brilliant, combative Irishman bestrode the world of English letters without peer, a continual advertisement for intelligence and wit.

Suggested Reading Plays Arms and the Man, 1894. Candida, 1897. The Devil’s Disciple, 1897. Captain Brassbound’s Confession, 1900. Caesar and Cleopatra, 1901. Mrs Warren’s Profession, 1902. Man and Superman, 1903. John Bull’s Other Island, 1904. Major Barbara, 1905. The Doctor’s Dilemma, 1906. Misalliance, 1910. The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, 1910. Androcles and the Lion, 1913. Pygmalion, 1913. Heartbreak House, 1919. Back to Methuselah, 1921. Saint Joan, 1923. The Apple Cart, 1929. Too True to Be Good, 1932. Essays & Studies The Quintessence of Ibsenism, 1891. The Impossibilities of Anarchism, 1893. The Sanity of Art, 1895. The Perfect Wagnerite, 1898. Dramatic Opinions and Essays, 1906. Common Sense about the War, 1914. The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, 1928. Major Critical Essays, 1930. Music in London 1890-1894, 1930. Essays in Fabian Socialism, 1932. Pen Portraits and Reviews, 1932. London Music in 1888-1889, 1937. Autobiography Shaw Gives Himself Away, 1939. Sixteen Self Sketches, 1949. Letters Bernard Shaw and Mrs Patrick Campbell: Their Correspondence, 1952.

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