Authors

Irish · 1856–1950

Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was the dominant figure of English-language theatre for half a century, whose plays including Pygmalion (1913), Heartbreak House (1919), Saint Joan (1923), and Arms and the Man (1894) combined socialist politics, philosophical argument, and comic brilliance in a form entirely his own. Irish-born, he settled in London as a music critic and journalist before his plays made him famous. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925 and an Academy Award for the Pygmalion screenplay in 1939 — he gave the prize money away and accepted the Oscar with reluctant amusement.