George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw
Shaw in 1911, by Alvin Langdon Coburn
Born	(1856-07-26)26 July 1856 Dublin, Ireland
Died	2 November 1950(1950-11-02) (aged 94) Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire, UK
Occupation	Playwright, critic, political activist
Nationality	British (1856–1950) Irish (dual nationality 1934–50)
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Literature 1925 Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay 1938 Pygmalion
Spouse	Charlotte Payne-Townshend (m. 1898–1943, her death)

George Bernard Shaw (/ˈdʒɔːrdʒ ˈbɜːrˌnərd ʃɔː/; 26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, and polemicist whose influence on Western theatre, culture, and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1903), Pygmalion (1913), and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1873, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra.