PT’s Excellent Adventure: February 10, 2005
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) exhibit at Burns Library, Boston College, MA
Any man who dies by falling from a ladder, naked, from a tree he’s trimming gets my vote. That George Bernard Shaw was 94 when he was engaged in this endeavor makes me consider putting him on a pedestal (possibly surrounded by a net).
The Adventurer’s visit to a small exhibit at Boston College’s Burns Library gave him an inkling of the immensity of Shaw’s literary and social career. Entitled “Mr. Shaw’s time is filled up for months to come”, the contents of several glass showcases show the verity of this statement.
The man was a full force writer, journalist, opinionated public speaker, music critic, and intellectual gadfly. He didnt have much of a formal education and yet by the early 1930s, he compiled a thirty volume set of work he’d penned. Not bad for a Dublin lad whose career started as a reader for the British Library.
He began writing plays at age 37 and for the rest of his life didn’t shut up from commenting on world events, literary news, health, and economics. He married an Irish heiress in 1898 and stayed married to her for 45 years. By 1923, he’d already written Arms and the Man, Candida, The Devil’s Disciple, and Mrs. Warren’s Profession, some of which today continue being required reading for English majors. I will confess, as a recovering English major, that the intellectually laced plays were a taxing read.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his play St. Joan in 1923.
He seemed to enjoy heaving literary, cultural, and political hand grenades. As a member of the Fabian Society, he championed socialism. He was a teetotaler and abstained from consuming alcohol and tobacco and preferred water, barley water, Instant Postum (egad), ginger beer, milk, and cocoa. He had strange ideas about clothing and health. He believed that wearing wool right under your skin promoted good breathing and had special woolen vestments made for him.
He certainly lived a healthy life style. He just should have stayed out of trees.
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