Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw Paperback Book (1961)

Looking to add to your book collection? We've got just the thing! This softcover is an interesting read that is sure to please. SUMMARY Shaw wrote the part of Eliza Doolittle--"an east-end dona with an apron and three orange and red ostrich feathers"--for Mrs. Patrick Campbell, with whom he had a passionate but unconsummated affair. From the outset the play was a sensational success, although Shaw, irritated by its popularity at the expense of his artistic intentions, dismissed it as a potboiler. The Pygmalion of legend falls in love with his perfect female statue and persuades Venus to bring her to life so that he can marry her. But Shaw radically reworks Ovid's tale to give it a feminist slant: while Higgins teaches Eliza to speak and act like a duchess, she also asserts her independence, adamantly refusing to be his creation. This Penguin Classics edition is the definitive text produced under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence, with an illuminating introduction by Nicholas