"The Life and Work of Bernard Shaw"

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 13, 9 October 1931, Page 2

"The Life and Work of Bernard Shaw"

Six Talks on

By the

Rev.

William A.

Constable

MA.

(To be broadcast from 1Y A, Tuesday, October 13, at 7.30 p.m., and each Tuesday following). = # Synopsis of No. 1.-Early Life. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW was born in Dublin on July 26, 1856. His father, an Irish Protestant, was an amiable man, whose worst El faults were inefficiency and an ardent devotion to "respectability"; but he * had a sense of humour, and of the comic force of anti-climax, which we see in his son. ; His mother was a woman of exceptional vitality, indifferent to public opinion, and passionately fond of music. The music of Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Gounod and other composers was the chief educational influence of our dramatist’s boyhood. Later, his mother took up music professionally.to provide for the family, and went to London. : 4 a At the age of fourteen, young Shaw went into a agent’s office in Dublin, at a salary of £18 a year. He proved himself so efficient that he was made cashier, and held the post for six years, though he. disliked the work. ‘During these years the love of art, fostered by visits to the National Gallery of Ireland, was the second great educational influence: of is life. ' At the age of twenty he joined his mother in London, tried and failed to earn a living in many ways, and would have starved but for the help of, his mother-though, as teetotaller and non-smoker and vegetarian, his method of living was always frugal. Between 1879 and 1883 he wrote five novels, five pages of manuscript each day with unfailing regularity-completing one novel each year-but with unfailing result-refusal by the publisher. These were "Immaturity," "The Irrational Knot," "Love Among the Artists," "Cashel Byron’s Profession" and "An Unsocial Socialist." They were published later, first in serial form. "Cashel Byron’s Profession" won the praise of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson. These novels were good practice in the art of writing, and we can see the incipient dramatist in them. His own verdict on them is: "My novels are very green things, very carefully written." (Lives of Shaw, and studies of his work as critic, socialist and dramatist, are plentiful. The best life is by Prof. A. Henderson. Studies of his work have been done by Holbrook Jackson, G. K. Chesterton, Collis, E, Shanks and many others. An excellent brief treatment of his plays will be found in Prof. Morgan’s "Tendencies of Modern English Drama.")