Book description
Pygmalion both delighted and scandalized its first audiences in 1914. A
brilliantly witty reworking of the classical tale of the sculptor
Pygmalion, who falls in love with his perfect female statue, it is also
a barbed attack on the British class system and a statement of Shaw's
feminist views. In Shaw's hands, the phoneticist Henry Higgins is the
Pygmalion figure who believes he can transform Eliza Doolittle, a
cockney flower girl, into a duchess at ease in polite society. The one
thing he overlooks is that his 'creation' has a mind of her own.
Dublin-born George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an active Socialist
and a brilliant platform speaker. He was strongly critical of London
theatre and closely associated with the intellectual revival of
British drama.
Dan H. Laurence has edited Shaw's COLLECTED LETTERS and COLLECTED
PLAYS with their Prefaces. He was Literary Advisor to the Shaw Estate
until his retirement in 1990.
Nicholas Grene is Professor of English at the University of Dublin.
