21 Sep George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856, but lived in England for his entire adult life. Shaw wrote more than fifty plays including Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Major Barbara (1905), Man and Superman (1905), The Doctor’s Dilemma (1906) and Saint Joan (1923). He might best be remembered for Pygmalion (1913) winning an Oscar for writing the screenplay for the great film adaptation of 1938. The play was later the source for the musical My Fair Lady (1964) starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, winner of eight Oscars including Best Picture.

About 30 miles north of London, in the village of Ayot St Lawrence, is Shaw’s Corner: a great stop on your literary tour of England. This Edwardian villa – now owned and managed by the National Trust – was Shaw’s home from 1906 until his death in 1950 at the age of 94. The rooms in the house and his writing hut in the garden remain largely as Shaw left them. His wife of 45 years, Charlotte, had died in 1943. Both were cremated and their ashes taken to Shaw’s Corner, mixed and then scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in the garden.