George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, socialist, and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama. Over the course of his life he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his plays address prevailing social problems, but each also includes a vein of comedy that makes their stark themes more palatable. In these works Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege.
An ardent socialist, Shaw was angered by what he perceived to be the exploitation of the working class. He wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society. He became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthy lifestyles. For a short time he was active in local politics, serving on the London County Council.
He hated the name George and always preferred to be called simply Bernard Shaw
He is the only person to have won both a Nobel Prize (for Literature in 1925) and an Oscar (for the screenplay of his play Pygmalion in 1938).
Born in Dublin he began work aged 15 as a junior clerk in a Dublin estate agency at a salary of £18 a year.
He later described the work as a “damnable waste of human life”.
Throughout his life he campaigned strongly for both socialism and alphabet reform...
...his new alphabet was designed to eliminate inconsistencies in English spelling. He left a large amount of money to promote his new alphabet but it never became popular.
He was a lifelong vegetarian and opposed British involvement in the First World War.
Because of his anti-war pamphlets and speeches he was expelled from the Dramatists’ Club.
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