Biography George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw Author, Playwright (1856-1950) Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote more than 60 plays during his lifetime and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925. Synopsis George Bernard Shaw was born July 26, 1856, in Dublin, Ireland. In 1876 he moved to London, where he wrote regularly but struggled financially. In 1895, he became a theater critic for the Saturday Review and began writing plays of his own. His play Pygmalion was later made into a film twice, and the screenplay he wrote for the first version of it won an Oscar. During his lifetime, he wrote more than 60 plays and won many other awards, among them the Nobel Prize. Early Years Playwright George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, on July 26, 1856. The third child, Shaw's early education took the form of tutoring sessions provided by his clerical uncle. Early on, Shaw explored the worlds of the arts (music, art, literature) under his mother's guidance