One of George Bernard Shaw's best-known plays, Pygmalion is based on ancient Greek mythology. Pygmalion fell in love with one of his sculptures, which then came to life. The general idea of that myth was a popular subject for Victorian era British playwrights. Shaw's updated and revised version of this ancient Greek legend was first presented in England in 1914. Poking fun of the antiquated British class system, it introduces Henry Higgins, a professor...

You can't sculpt someone to love. Derryl, a lonely radish, attempts to create a boyfriend out of a defunct and now illegal children's product. His creation, Peter, springs to life ready to make a child happy, and instead finds a suffocating and cloistered existence catering to Derryl's needs. When Peter sneaks out to a party one night and meets Derryl's friends, he discovers there's even more to his creator's intentions than he thought. A queer...

Pygmalion and Three Other Plays, by George Bernard Shaw, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors •...

Translated literally as "book of love," Liber Amoris is William Hazlitt's fictional account of his affair with the daughter of an innkeeper. In it, he also explores the darker elements of his personality. An important example of Romantic short fiction, this autobiographical novel was reviled upon publication due to its unsavory subject matter.

Agnes Surriage, it turns out, was more Pygmalion than Cinderella. Her role models were the fiercely independent "codfish widows, "? wives of the early Marblehead fishermen who managed home and family seven months a year without their husbands. In Agnes's version of My Fair Lady, she had to act as her own Henry Higgins while making the often painful transformation from "girl of all works"? at the Fountain Inn to the charming and dignified Lady Agnes,...

A Study Guide for George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama for Students for all of your research needs.

Sculptor Antonio Frilli carved his statue of a Nude Sleeping in a Hammock according to the Pygmalion myth. Frilli's life-sized statue came to San Francisco for the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exhibition. There she was purchased to rest as "Eva" in the garden of a home later owned by lawyer and pianist John Hayden. After selling her John came to believe it was Eva's curse that caused his ten years of misfortune. But when he discovered that the...

A stuffy professor of phonetics takes a bet that in six months time he can turn a Cockney flower seller into a lady he could pass off as a duchess.