C RITICAL EXCERPTS

Biographical Studies
Henderson, Archibald. George Bernard Shaw: Man of the Century.
New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1956.
This massive book is the third Shaw biography written by
Henderson. He wrote two others with Shaws cooperation. An
exhaustive summary of Shaws life.

Shaws apparent deficiency in feeling inclines the reader and

spectator to regard him as cold and unsympathetic. His
natural inclination is to have fun at any cost. . . . If it be true
that Shaws characters represent views of life, rather than
embody persons, they of necessity take on a certain
mechanical rigidity, like marionettes in a puppet show. There
is little room left for the free play of emotion. Shaw attracts
attention by making people laugh, not by making them
weep. It is by jingling the bell of the jester, he observes,
that I, like Heine, have made people listen to me. All
genuinely intellectual work is humorous.

Holroyd, Michael. Bernard Shaw, 4 volumes. New York: Random

House, 19881992.
Hendersons biography has been superseded by Holroyds
four-volume effort (a one-volume abridgment is available). Both
readable and comprehensive, it stands as the definitive day-by-
day account of Shaws very long and very full life.

The original ending of [Pygmalion] is carefully ambiguous,

reflecting Shaws uncertainties over his romance with Stella
[Campbell, the actress who played Eliza in the first London
production]. He could not marry her: she could not remain
for ever his pupil as an actress learning from his theatrical
direction. But might they become lovers? . . . The faint
poignancy of the ending lies in the half-emergent realization

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