George Bernard Shaw, born in Dublin in the year 1856, was an Irish playwright, arts reviewer, journalist, photographer, and public speaker. His father, George Carr Shaw was an alcoholic merchant and mother, Lucinda Elizabeth Shaw was a singer.

At the age of 16, Shaw witnessed the break up of his parents. When he was 20 years old, Shaw came to London from Ireland along with his mother and thanks to William Archer, he started out as a critic. Below are the 5 important things that you want to know about G.B. Shaw.

1. Before Shaw could make it out as a critic and become self-supporting, he used to visit the British Museum for reading and writing novels. For five years, he repeated the same process, reading books and producing novels, but couldn’t find any publishers who accepted his works. Shaw refused any works that didn’t suit his desires of a writer and had to stay at his mother’s place with funding provided by his father. It was this experience that encouraged Shaw to write “lack of money is the root of all evil”.
2. On an occasion when George Orwell was to attend a BBC interview, he asked Shaw to give permission for quoting some points from his works. However, Shaw didn’t respond favorably and rejected the proposal ruthlessly.
3. Shaw was never an enthusiastic person to receive awards or honors. He got into a rare list of writers who rejected the knighthood along with E.M. Forster, Aldous Huxley and so on. After the refusal, he stated that merit is only calculated based on the useful contributions and greatness one acquires in history.
4. The most fascinating truth about G.B. Shaw is that he was awarded both the Nobel Prize and the Oscar, and he is the only man to receive both the honors. In the year 1925, Shaw accepted the Nobel Prize for literature because his wife said that it would be a great honor to Ireland. However, he took the Nobel, but asked the committee to give the money to help the translation of Swedish literature into English. Shaw a wrote a screenplay “Pygmalion”, which was an adoption of his play by the same name, for which he received Oscar in the year 1938.
5. Shaw was a prominent member of the Fabian society which also contained the Webbs and Annie Besant. He joined the Fabian Society in the year 1884. George Bernard Shaw was the co-founder of the London School of Economics, along with Graham Wallas, Beatrice and Sidney Webb. The school was found in the year 1895 with the intention to better the society through necessary education.

George Bernard Shaw lived for 94 years and his death was due to an accident. In the year 1950, when Shaw by climbing a ladder was trimming a tree, he fell off and the injuries proved fatal. However, he will forever be remembered for his plays like “Man and Superman”, “Saint Joan”, “Pygamlion”, “Caeser and Cleopatra”, etc. that will infinitely resonate good influence on the readers.

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