-
Born in portbello, Dublin, Ireland
Shaw Grew up in a respectably poor household with his father, a civil servant, his mother a music teacher, and his two older sisters -
school ain't it!
left school to work in the office of a land agent at the age of 16. -
beginnings of a writer
Shaw's mother leaves to London in 1872 to follow her music teacher. She takes her two daughters and Shaw stays behind. In 1876 Shaw decides to follow his mother and eldest sister (the youngest having died) to London to become a writer. -
A struggling writer
created his first ever semi-autobiographical fiction titled "Immaturity" which never got picked up by a publisher until 1930. -
Fabian Society
Shaw helped with the formation of the Fabian Society which was a middle-class socialist group that aimed at the transformation of English society not through revolution but through “permeation” -
A steady incline
discovered by established drama critic William Archer in 1885, Shaw slowly started to accumulate more experience by doing book reviews, art criticisms and musical columns until 1894 -
Widowers’ Houses
wrote first play, Widowers' Houses; influenced by the realistic dramas of Henrik Ibsen -
recruitment
Shaw was recruited as a theatre critic for the "Saturday Review" in 1895. -
Breakdown
Suffered a breakdown from overwork. married Charlotte Payne-Townshend, the woman who nursed him to health -
Man and superman
In Man and Superman (performed 1905) Shaw expounded his philosophy that humanity is the latest stage in a purposeful and eternal evolutionary movement of the “life force” toward ever-higher life forms. -
Pygmalion
the play is a humane comedy about love and the English class system. This play was adapted into a film and earned Shaw an Academy Award. It was also adapted into a musical called "My Fair Lady" -
The Aftermath of World War 1
World War I was a watershed for Shaw. At first he ceased writing plays, publishing instead a controversial pamphlet, “Common Sense About the War,” which called Great Britain and its allies equally culpable with the Germans and argued for negotiation and peace. His antiwar speeches made him notorious and the target of much criticism. -
Heartbreak House
In Heartbreak House (performed 1920), Shaw exposed, in a country-house setting on the eve of war, the spiritual bankruptcy of the generation responsible for the war’s bloodshed. This play is known as one of his darkest works. -
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1925 was awarded to George Bernard Shaw "for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty." -
womens guide to socialism
when Shaw's stepsister asked for a few ideas of what socialism is this is what she got, "What she got was The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism, one of the great, passionate and indignant expositions of how social injustice destroys human lives. Class and inequality create a rich and a poor – equal only in the obnoxiousness of both their stations – causing both the degradation of poverty and the idleness of wealth." -
Charlottes death
his wife, Charlotte, died of a lingering illness in 1943, in the midst of World War II -
Death
Shaw moved back to his country home at Ayot St. Lawrence, a Hertfordshire village in which he had lived since 1906. He died there in 1950. -