Books with author Shaw Bernard 1856-1950

This book is an illustrated version of the original Caesar and Cleopatra by Bernard Shaw. Caesar meets the young Cleopatracrouching at night between the paws of a sphinx, where—having been driven from Alexandria—she is hiding. He returns her to the palace, reveals his identity, and compels her to abandon her girlishness and accept her position as coruler of Egypt (with Ptolemy Dionysus, her brother). Caesar and Cleopatra was extraordinarily successful, largely because of Shaw’s talent for characterization.

In George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion a phonetician believes the power of speech is such that he can introduce a Cockney flower girl to polite society after careful language and etiquette training, and no one will discern her true roots. The professor and the flower girl grown close, but after her successful debut she rejects the professor and his overbearing ways for a poor gentleman. The most famous adaptation of the play is the 1964 film My Fair Lady, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison.

This play is based on the Greek myth of Pygmalion. It tells the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics (based on phonetician Henry Sweet), who makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can successfully pass off a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, as a refined society lady by teaching her how to speak with an upper class accent and training her in etiquette. In the process, Higgins and Doolittle grow close, but she ultimately rejects his domineering ways and declares she will marry Freddy Eynsford-Hill - a young, poor, gentleman.