The Pygmalion (Complete Illustrated Edition): In Mary’s Reign - Historical Novel

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Excerpt: It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him. (Pygmalion, Preface) Named after a Greek mythological character the play was first presented on stage to the public in 1913. In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love with one of his sculptures, which then came to life. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a commentary on women’s independence and has been successfully adapted into a motion picture and a musical comedy. George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) was an Irish playwright, essayist, novelist and short story writer and wrote more than 60 plays. He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize in Literature (1925) and an Academy Award (1938).