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Bernard Shaw: The One-Volume Definitive Edition
When Michael Holroyd's multivolume life of Bernard Shaw was published, it was hailed as a masterpiece, and William Golding predicted that it would take its place "among the great biographies." Now the biography is available for the first time in a lively and accessible abridgment by the author. This is the quintessence of Shaw. The narrative has a new verve and pace, and the light and shade of Shaw's world are more dramatically revealed as Holroyd counterpoints the private and public Shaw with inimitable insight and scholarship.
Playwright, wit, socialist, polemicist, vegetarian, and irresistible charmer, Bernard Shaw was the most controversial literary figure of his age, the scourge of Victorian values and middle-class pretensions. Born in Dublin in 1856, he grew up there, a lonely child in an unsettling ménage à trois. His father, George Carr Shaw, had turned to drink, and his mother was muse to a Svengali-like music teacher whom she followed to London. The young Shaw, anxious to escape his heritage, also left for London to reinvent himself as the legendary G.B.S.—novelist, lover, politician, music critic, and finally playwright. From his first passionate affair with a beautiful middle-aged widow, he moved on to flirtations and liaisons with young actresses and socialists before finally settling into marriage in 1898.
At the turn of the century, Shaw was in his prime, a theatrical impresario and author of those great campaigning plays—Man and Superman, Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma, and John Bull's Other Island—that used laughter as an anesthetic for the operation he performed on British society. By 1914 the author of Pygmalion was the most popular writer in England, and increasingly recognized throughout Europe and America. Though ready with advice to others on how to stay married, he fell painfully in love with two of the most dazzling actresses of the age, Ellen Terry and Mrs. Patrick Campbell.
The reluctant recipient of a Nobel prize for literature and an Academy Award for his screenplay for Pygmalion, Shaw became an international icon between the two world wars, feted from China and Soviet Russia to India and New Zealand, though still contriving to provoke the establishment in the United States, South Africa, and Ireland. In old age he was vigorous and prolific, espousing many new and quixotic causes. He revealed himself increasingly as conjurer, fabulist, and seer through his powerful late works, including Saint Joan, the Chekhovian Heartbreak House, the modernist fantasy Back to Methuselah, and the imaginative dream plays and political extravaganzas.
Covering almost a century, from 1856 to 1950, this unparalleled life of Shaw presents the magnificent double portrait of an age and of a man who was born fifty years too soon. Holroyd magically captures the essence of Shaw's protean genius in a tragicomedy that is constantly absorbing, surprising, funny, and moving.
Playwright, wit, socialist, polemicist, vegetarian, and irresistible charmer, Bernard Shaw was the most controversial literary figure of his age, the scourge of Victorian values and middle-class pretensions. Born in Dublin in 1856, he grew up there, a lonely child in an unsettling ménage à trois. His father, George Carr Shaw, had turned to drink, and his mother was muse to a Svengali-like music teacher whom she followed to London. The young Shaw, anxious to escape his heritage, also left for London to reinvent himself as the legendary G.B.S.—novelist, lover, politician, music critic, and finally playwright. From his first passionate affair with a beautiful middle-aged widow, he moved on to flirtations and liaisons with young actresses and socialists before finally settling into marriage in 1898.
At the turn of the century, Shaw was in his prime, a theatrical impresario and author of those great campaigning plays—Man and Superman, Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma, and John Bull's Other Island—that used laughter as an anesthetic for the operation he performed on British society. By 1914 the author of Pygmalion was the most popular writer in England, and increasingly recognized throughout Europe and America. Though ready with advice to others on how to stay married, he fell painfully in love with two of the most dazzling actresses of the age, Ellen Terry and Mrs. Patrick Campbell.
The reluctant recipient of a Nobel prize for literature and an Academy Award for his screenplay for Pygmalion, Shaw became an international icon between the two world wars, feted from China and Soviet Russia to India and New Zealand, though still contriving to provoke the establishment in the United States, South Africa, and Ireland. In old age he was vigorous and prolific, espousing many new and quixotic causes. He revealed himself increasingly as conjurer, fabulist, and seer through his powerful late works, including Saint Joan, the Chekhovian Heartbreak House, the modernist fantasy Back to Methuselah, and the imaginative dream plays and political extravaganzas.
Covering almost a century, from 1856 to 1950, this unparalleled life of Shaw presents the magnificent double portrait of an age and of a man who was born fifty years too soon. Holroyd magically captures the essence of Shaw's protean genius in a tragicomedy that is constantly absorbing, surprising, funny, and moving.
833 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1991
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155 people want to read
About the author
Michael Holroyd
139 books46 followersMichael 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.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 23, 2020
Again, I was led on an adventure in literature, theater, and music. I highly recommend Shaw's plays. There are some high quality BBC performances with big name Brit stars. If you like British humor, these are some funny plays.
Shaw, along with Beatrice Potter and her husband, started the Fabian Society, which then started the London School of Economics. At one time, H. G. Wells was also a leading member and friend of Shaw. Socialism was a big topic of the day and Shaw and friends were at the forefront of the movement.
Shaw was often a family guest at the various famous people's homes. Although not quite the Whose Who of Oscar Wilde's acquaintances, Shaw ran with an influential crowd, especially those in the theater.
You also get insight into the adoption of some technologies, such as bicycles (Shaw kept getting injured in accidents), telephones (Shaw's job at one point was to find places to put telephone poles), and typewriters.
This is the story of a literary man who was mostly self-taught, a vegetarian and "health nut" (look up "Jagger Suit"), a music lover and talented critic, a humorist (and all-round funny and eccentric person), and a visionary. There are some things about his character that are disturbing (nothing like Wilde's), and other things that seem contradictory. For example, he was an atheist, yet encouraged a young actress who was agitated about her career and future to find a quiet church and read the Gospel of John. He had a long-running battle in the papers with G. K. Chesterton over religion and society that was always amiable and polite. He was a man of whom Oscar Wilde said, "He has no enemies, and his friends dislike him."
Clearly, this is an abridgment. It is very interesting, but you can tell large parts have been left out. Shaw was a prolific writer at an important time in Western history. It must have been a huge challenge just to stop at four volumes, let alone cut it down to one.
Shaw, along with Beatrice Potter and her husband, started the Fabian Society, which then started the London School of Economics. At one time, H. G. Wells was also a leading member and friend of Shaw. Socialism was a big topic of the day and Shaw and friends were at the forefront of the movement.
Shaw was often a family guest at the various famous people's homes. Although not quite the Whose Who of Oscar Wilde's acquaintances, Shaw ran with an influential crowd, especially those in the theater.
You also get insight into the adoption of some technologies, such as bicycles (Shaw kept getting injured in accidents), telephones (Shaw's job at one point was to find places to put telephone poles), and typewriters.
This is the story of a literary man who was mostly self-taught, a vegetarian and "health nut" (look up "Jagger Suit"), a music lover and talented critic, a humorist (and all-round funny and eccentric person), and a visionary. There are some things about his character that are disturbing (nothing like Wilde's), and other things that seem contradictory. For example, he was an atheist, yet encouraged a young actress who was agitated about her career and future to find a quiet church and read the Gospel of John. He had a long-running battle in the papers with G. K. Chesterton over religion and society that was always amiable and polite. He was a man of whom Oscar Wilde said, "He has no enemies, and his friends dislike him."
Clearly, this is an abridgment. It is very interesting, but you can tell large parts have been left out. Shaw was a prolific writer at an important time in Western history. It must have been a huge challenge just to stop at four volumes, let alone cut it down to one.
January 22, 2013
This book is a must ready for anyone who is interested in how life was in England 120 years ago. Shaw was a person of high moral in a world full greed and hypocrisy. If you ever ask yourself how our world became what it is today, this book will let you understand some of the circumstances.. Stay away from it if you don't like biographies..
December 6, 2018
After viewing Heartbreak House in NYC, I decided to learn more about the playwright. This one-volume DEFINITIVE edition is more than I expected. Page after page of exploits reveal a man of superhuman ability. I enjoyed the intimacy of the biography but found the constant switch between the author Holroyd's voice and that of GBS or Bernard Shaw, as he preferred to be called, a little off-putting. Holroyd uses Shaw own rich trove of words to tell the story. But I found it difficult at times to parse where the Shavian words ended and the author's interpretation began.
Shaw lived such a long and rich life (94 years!) that Holroyd really needed the multiple volumes to deal with it. By squeezing everything Shaw wrote including, letters and dialogue from plays, quotes from speeches and broadcasts and more, my mind reeled from the intensity and virtuosity of the man.
I enjoy most the detailed descriptions of the development of Shaw's most important plays, such as Heartbreak House. Perhaps the best way for me to understand the man is to read, as well as watch, his plays. The themes in Shaw's plays still resonate with audiences a lifetime after the works were written.
Shaw lived such a long and rich life (94 years!) that Holroyd really needed the multiple volumes to deal with it. By squeezing everything Shaw wrote including, letters and dialogue from plays, quotes from speeches and broadcasts and more, my mind reeled from the intensity and virtuosity of the man.
I enjoy most the detailed descriptions of the development of Shaw's most important plays, such as Heartbreak House. Perhaps the best way for me to understand the man is to read, as well as watch, his plays. The themes in Shaw's plays still resonate with audiences a lifetime after the works were written.
July 7, 2023
This biography is so extensive which is good, but its a little over done in many chapters. The transition from one thought to the next is so choppy and the connection from one relevant person to the next in Shaw's life is often confusing and the jumping in time with reference to events in the past makes it hard to keep track of important dates.
I will say however that the author does an amazing job of going extremely in depth in summary and analysis of Shaw's plays.
I will say however that the author does an amazing job of going extremely in depth in summary and analysis of Shaw's plays.
May 8, 2023
A wonderfully book , almost a novel because of the way the biographer inserts himself so clearly into the writing. And with a subject like gbs its hard not to get great quotes for every part of his life. The only reason for 4 rather than 5 is that perhaps theere is a little too much of the author and his interpretation of the variety of personnas of shaw.
February 7, 2023
An amazing life. Shaw knew Oscar Wilde,William Morris, Einstein,Elgar, Charlie Chaplin, H G Wells, James Joyce. In his 94 years he lived through 2 world wars, was there for the birth of motor cars,telephones, movies.
August 30, 2025
3.5. Extremely detailed. 800 pages is probably too much. There is so much written about people he met when they don’t end up being very relevant figures in his life. Overall, not bad, but too long.
July 30, 2013
When I wrote a play on Shaw I used Holroyd as my main resource.
November 24, 2014
A model of a biography. A beautifully written life of a man by turns silly and sensible - a near genius in some respects whose plays, and letters can be read with pleasure.
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July 22, 2017not what i had expected
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews