Pygmalion

This play is based on the Greek myth of Pygmalion. It tells the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics (based on phonetician Henry Sweet), who makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can successfully pass off a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, as a refined society lady by teaching her how to speak with an upper class accent and training her in etiquette. In the process, Higgins and Doolittle grow close, but she ultimately rejects his domineering ways and declares she will marry Freddy Eynsford-Hill - a young, poor, gentleman.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was one of the most prolific writers of the modern theater. He won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Dan H. Laurence edited many of Shaw's works and is the series editor for the works of Shaw in Penguin Classics.

Nicholas Grene is professor of English literature at Trinity College in Dublin.