His fair lady: how George Bernard Shaw’s wife played a vital role in his masterworks

Charlotte’s influence has been downplayed, says a new book on how women are written out of history

In the climactic final scene of George Bernard Shaw’s masterpiece Pygmalion, Henry Higgins famously threatens to wring Eliza Doolittle’s neck. “Wring away!” she replies. “Oh, when I think of myself crawling under your feet and being trampled on and called names, when all the time I had only to lift up my finger to be as good as you, I could just kick myself.”

Until now, Shaw’s play about the flower girl who is transformed into a duchess by a wealthy professor was thought to have little in common with the great playwright’s own life. But this summer, a new book will shine a spotlight on the important contributions that Shaw’s wife, Charlotte, an heiress and intellectual, made to his work – and reveal how her connections and influence utterly transformed Shaw’s life and career.

Related: How TV fell out of love with George Bernard Shaw

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