The book traces in some detail Shaw's work as a critic (puritanical opposition to Shakespeare) and as a dramatist. G K Chesterton was ideally placed to write this critical biography of the literary works and political views of George Bernard Shaw. He was a personal friend and yet an ardent opponent of Shaw's progressive socialism. The lightness of tone and the humour of his other works are equally present in his examination of Shaw. The book presents...

To his own generation Bernard Shaw's greatest creation seemed to be himself. Playwright, wit, socialist, polemicist and irresistible charmer, he was the most controversial literary figure of his age and the scourge of all that was most oppressive in late-Victorian England. In his writing and public speeches, he embodied the unfamiliar virtues of reason, sense and unanswerable good humor. And yet, as the opening volume of this masterly four-volume...