George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856, the youngest child of George Carr and Lucinda Elizabeth Shaw. His mother was an opera singer and voice trainer; his father was an unsuccessful businessman and alcoholic who could not pull his family out of poverty, in spite of belonging to the genteel class of Protestant Irish gentry. Shaw once described himself as a "downstart," one whose family had come down in the world. When Shaw was twenty, he moved to London with his mother. Lucinda earned the family's living with her music; Shaw wrote five unsuccessful novels and furthered his education through reading. Music was central to his world and would later come to be essential to his plays.
Shaw entered the theatrical world as a critic, writing music reviews for various papers until asked to.....
This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 455 words. This
study guide contains 18,588 words (approx. 62 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our Man and Superman Access Pass.
