Contents

1. Fermenting Genealogy

2. An Irish Marriage

3. Devil of a Childhood

4. The Magician Appears

5. Ménage à Trois

6. The Shame of Education

7. Music in Dublin

8. Marking Time

1. The Ghosting of Vandeleur Lee

2. Experiments with the Novel

3. Some Further Experiments

4. Respectable Habits

5. On Growing a Beard

6. Courting Miss Lockett

7. Death and a Renewal

1. In Search of a Family

2. Heroes and Friends

3. The Prospective Lover

4. Introducing Sidney Webb

1. The Perfect Ibsenite

2. A Crust for the Critics

3. Mystical Betrothal

4. Corno di Bassetto

5. Exits and Entrances

1. The Courtship of the Webbs

2. Plays Unpleasant

3. Arms and the Man

4. The Playwright and the Actress

5. Candidamania

1. Living with the Saturday

2. Some Dramatic Opinions

3. Tilting with Henry Irving

4. Candida Refinished

5. A First Play for Puritans

1. St Pancras Vestryman

2. Courtship Dances

3. A Terrible Adventure

1. The Happy Accidents of Marriage

2. On Heroines and Hero-Worship

3. Boer War Manoeuvres

1. Some Unexpected Characters

2. Home Life and Holidays

3. Shakes versus Shav

4. Man and Superman

5. John Bull’s Other Island

6. Granville Barker Comes to Court

7. Curtain Up on Major Barbara

1. Fabian Bedfellows

2. Wells Joins the Cast

3. A Revolution at the Court

4. Concerning The Doctor’s Dilemma

5. Invasion of the West End

1. Sitting to Rodin

2. A Cat and Dog Life

3. Getting Married and Staying Married

4. Slave of the Automobile

5. A Treatise on Biography

6. Shewing up the Censorship

1. The Gods and Misalliance

2. Further Particulars on Mr Wells

3. Skits and Farces

4. On the Sub-text of Success

5. Dearest Liar

Chapter Thirteen

1. Concerning Fame and Anonymity

2. The History of Pygmalion

3. What He Did in the Great War

4. Touring the Trenches

5. The Recruiting Officer

6. Anglo-Irish Politics

7. Casualties of War

Chapter Fourteen

1. Some Hints on the Peace

2. Shaw’s Heartbreak

3. Miss Cross Patch Comes to Stay

4. Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman

5. Home Rule for England

6. Free Will in Translation

Chapter Fifteen

1. Collaborating with a Saint

2. The End and a Beginning

3. An Idle Romance

4. Intelligent Women and the Body Politic

Chapter Sixteen

1. Striking an Attitude

2. Upsetting The Apple Cart

3. Author of Himself

4. The Celtic-Hibernian School

5. The Boxer and the Nun

Chapter Seventeen

1. Elopement to Russia

2. A Pilgrim’s Progress

3. Missionary Travels

4. Prefaces to Death

Chapter Eighteen

1. The Demands of the Political Theatre

2. Undergoing a Sea Change

3. Spontaneous Resurrection

4. Paperback and Celluloid

5. Three Plays for Historians

6. Trebitsch über Alles

Chapter Nineteen

1. Uncommon Sense and Careless Talk

2. Wife and Widower

3. Some Late Appearances

4. Fatal Attachments

5. The Story Continues

6. A Very Late Conclusion

Acknowledgements

About Bernard Shaw

About Michael Holroyd

Also by this Author

Great Lives: Literary Lives

An Invitation from the Publisher