Shaw was born in Dublin on July 26, 1856. His family was of upper-class ancestry, but had fallen on hard times. Perhaps as a result, he developed a lifelong interest in poverty and other social issues. Eventually, after moving to London in 1876, he joined the Fabian Society, an organization of intellectual socialists. He wrote and lectured for the Fabians on many issues of the day, and many of his creative works, including his five unsuccessful novels and his many successful plays, dealt with such topics as slumlords, prostitution, and women's rights, usually in a light-hearted manner. His plays in general are witty and paradoxical discussions of ideas, in some ways just an extension of the political debates he liked to engage in as a member of the various debating societies to which he belonged.

Throughout his career, Shaw was known as an irreverent skeptic, and he was not...