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Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts
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Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts Paperback - 2003

by George Bernard Shaw; Introduction by Nicholas Grene; Dan H. Laurence (Editor)

Shaw's expos of the British class system--featuring the enduring characters of Professor Henry Higgins and the "gutter-snipe" Eliza Doolittle he vows to turn into a lady--remains his most popular play. Includes Shaw's Preface and "sequel."

Summary

Shaw wrote the part of Eliza Doolittle—'an east-end dona with an apron and three orange and red ostrich feathers'—for Mrs Patrick Campbell, with whom he had a passionate but unconsummated affair. From the outset the play was a sensational success, although Shaw, irritated by its popularity at the expense of his artistic intentions, dismissed it as a potboiler. The Pygmalion of legend falls in love with his perfect female statue and persuades Venus to bring her to life so that he can marry her. But Shaw radically reworks Ovid's tale to give it a feminist slant: while Higgins teaches Eliza to speak and act like a duchess, she also asserts her independence, adamantly refusing to be his creation.

A brilliantly witty exposure of the British class system, it is, as Nicholas Grene comments in his Introduction, 'the wonderful inventiveness of its comedy, the force of what it still has to say to us, and the light playfulness of tone with which it is said', that ensures that Pygmalion continues to entertain us.



First line

London at 11.15 p.m. Torrents of heavy summer rain.

Details

  • Title Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts
  • Author George Bernard Shaw; Introduction by Nicholas Grene; Dan H. Laurence (Editor)
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: Repri
  • Pages 176
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Group, E Rutherford, New Jersey, U.S.A.
  • Date 2003-02-04
  • Features Table of Contents
  • ISBN 9780141439501 / 0141439505
  • Weight 0.25 lbs (0.11 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.78 x 5.12 x 0.36 in (19.76 x 13.00 x 0.91 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Themes
    • Cultural Region: Asian - General
    • Cultural Region: British
    • Ethnic Orientation: African American
    • Sex & Gender: Gay
  • Library of Congress subjects London (England), Man-woman relationships
  • Dewey Decimal Code 822.912

About the author

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is one of the world's greatest literary figures. Born in Dublin, Ireland, he left school at fourteen and in 1876 went to London, where he began his literary career with a series of unsuccessful novels. In 1884 he became a founder of the Fabian Society, the famous British socialist organization. After becoming a reviewer and drama critic, he published a study of the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen in 1891 and became determined to create plays as he felt Ibsen did: to shake audiences out of their moral complacency and to attack social problems. However, Shaw was an irrepressible wit, and his plays are as entertaining as they are socially provocative. Basically shy, Shaw created a public persona for himself: G.B.S., a bearded eccentric, crusading social critic, antivivisectionist, language reformer, strict vegetarian, and renowned public speaker. The author of fifty-three plays, hundreds of essays, reviews, and letters, and several books, Shaw is best known for Widowers' Houses, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Arms and the Man, Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and Superman, Major Barbara, Pygmalion, Heartbreak House, and Saint Joan. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.

Nicholas Grene (introducer) was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and the University of Cambridge. He is now a professor of English literature at Trinity College, as well as a senior fellow. His books include Synge: A Critical Study of the Plays, Bernard Shaw: A Critical View, and The Politics of Irish Drama.

Dan H. Laurence (series editor; 1920-2008) was series editor for the works of George Bernard Shaw in Penguin. Formerly a New York University faculty member, Mr. Laurence left his tenured position in 1970 to dedicated his life to the collection and curation of Shaw's life, work, and letters. He served as the official literary advisor to Shaw's estate and published four volumes of his correspondence.

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