One of the maxims in The Revolutionist's Handbook, appended to Man and Superman, reads: "He who can does. Somewhat later, he taught himself to play the piano - in the Shavian manner. At an early age he had memorized, among others, the works of Mozart, whose fine workmanship he never ceased to admire. Lucinda Gurley Shaw, the mother, was a gifted singer and music teacher she led her son to develop a passion for music, particularly operatic music. It was from his father that Shaw inherited his superb comic gift. Shaw remembered especially his father's "alcoholic antics" the old man was a remorseful yet unregenerate drinker. Shaw was the third child and only son in a family which he once described as "shabby but genteel." His father, George Carr Shaw, was employed as a civil servant and later became a not too successful merchant. A London publishing firm bought space in the Times to voice its greetings: His ninetieth birthday in 1946 was the occasion for an international celebration, the grand old man being presented with a festschrift entitled GBS 90 to which many distinguished writers contributed.
Born on July 26, 1856, in Dublin, Ireland, Shaw survived until November 2, 1950. Among the literate, no set of initials were more widely known than G.B.S.
Well before his death at the age of ninety-four, this famous dramatist and critic had become an institution. It is with good reason that Archibald Henderson, official biographer of his subject, entitled his work George Bernard Shaw: Man of the Century.
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