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George Bernard Shaw 
(1856-1950) 
George Bernard Show is an outstanding English playwright, 
one of the greatest satirists of the twentieth century. He was born in 
Dublin in an impoverished middle-class family. Until fourteen he 
attended a college, and from 1871 was employed in a land agent’s 
office. In 1876 he went to London, where he became a journalist and 
wrote music and dramatic critics for various periodicals. He was 
always in the midst of political life in Britain and took an active part 
in solving human problems. As literary critics state, Shaw’s manner 
of expression is based on real facts and ridicule. He exposes truth 
through satire and sarcasm.
The creative work of Bernard Shaw began with novels: 
“Immaturity” (1879), “The Irrational Knot” (1880), “Cashel Byron’s Profession” ( 1882), “An 
Unsocial Socialist”(1883), “Love Among the Artists” ( 1888), but they had little success, and in 
1892 the author turned to dramatic writing. His intellectual equipment was far greater than that of 
any of his contemporaries. He alone had understood the greatness of Norwegian dramatist Ibsen, 
and he was determined that his own plays should also be a vehicle for ideas. He had, from the first, 
accepted a burden in his dramas, beyond the presentation of plot and character. He had signed a 
contract with himself, and with the spirit of Ibsen, that each play should present a problem and 
discuss it thoroughly. His most important plays are: “Widowers’ Houses” (1893), “Mrs. Warren’s 
Profession” (1898), “Candida” (1898), “The Devil’s Disciple” (1901), “Caesar and Cleopatra” 
(1901), “Man and Superman” (1903), “John Bull’s Other Island” 1906), “Major Barbara”(1907), 
“Heartbreak House” (1917), “Pygmalion” (1919), “Saint Joan”(1923), “Back to Methuselah” 
(1921), “The Apple Cart” (1930), “Too Good to Be True” (1932), “On the Rocks” (1933). In these 

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and other plays Shaw criticized the vices of the existing society. They also reveal human 
psychology as a product of this society.
Shaw was convinced that modern plays should contain, along with the traditional plot conflict 
and its resolution, what he called “the discussion”, a consideration of important problems and 
suggestions for their resolution.