Bernard Shaw, Volume 1: The Search for Love, 1856-98

Bernard Shaw #1

by Michael Holroyd

Shaw's life. Shelf 9

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Theatre, Ireland

496 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Michael Holroyd is the author of acclaimed biographies of George Bernard Shaw, the painter Augustus John, Lytton Strachey, and Ellen Terry and Henry Irving, as well as two memoirs, Basil Street Blues and Mosaic. Knighted for his services to literature, he is the president emeritus of the Royal Society of Literature and the only nonfiction writer to have been awarded the David Cohen British Prize for Literature. His previous book, A Strange Eventful History, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography in 2009. He lives in London with his wife, the novelist Margaret Drabble.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/michae...

Reviews

[Wilbur · Rating 4 out of 5]

See B.O.B.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough research of a man who comes across as exceedingly arrogant

[Jenny Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

The review with this listing is for the one volume version, not the 1988 Volume one which is what I read. Well worth reading, but a bit more exhaustive than necessary. Had I seen the one volume version I would have preferred it.

Holroyd's decision to cover facets of Shaw's life by topic rather than chronology at times becomes confusing. Holroyd also has very strong personal opinions about Shaw and editorializes too much rather than showing you Shaw in action and letting you draw your own conclusions.

Though he appears to be a darling of the literary establishment, I don't think he begins to rise to the level of the truly great English literary biographers of the late 20th century like Glendinning and Tomalin.