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Apr 05, 2008

Sera rated it:

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Nov 08, 2011

Leslie rated it:

Here is the plot as explained by Henry Higgins, who is such a satisfying and hilarious brute.

"There! Thats all you get out of Eliza. Ah-ah-ow-oo! No use explaining. As a military man you ought to know that. Give her her orders: thats what she wants. Eliza: you are to live here for the next six months, learning how to speak beautifully, like a lady in a florist's shop. If you're good and do whatever you're told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, and have lots to eat, and mone More...

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Oct 17, 2011

Ekaterina rated it:

That is a beautifully written play. I have watched this play recently in the theater, and I thought it was magnificent. Eliza was simply adorable and Henry Higgins made me laugh so hard. I will not spoil the book by blabbering about its content and the flow of events, but I just wanted to comment and give my opinion about the ending. I love endings like the one in this story. It is like the author is giving you the chance to create your own ending, thus letting you develop your imagination. I us More...

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Sep 23, 2011

Marion rated it:

This was a standard issue at school. I loved it then as I do now. George Bernard Shaw had the notion that epilogues were unnecessary but for the benefit of some unimaginative people put one in. I didn't like his ending but apreciated his willingness to add in an epliogue. I have been a fan of epilogues ever since!
For those who do not know the story, it is about Eliza Doolittle a common flowergirl in London. Henry Higgins a linguist was taking notes on her horrible accent, which ignited a pu More...

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Jul 23, 2011

David rated it:

Pygmalion, is Shaw's piece de resistance. It is his masterpiece. While I can simply leave it at that, I am compelled to say a lot more about this play, but first, the plot.
Two English gentlemen (and when I read this book I wondered if it was implied that they were homosexual) bet as to whether they can take a street urchin and turn her into a lady by teaching her how to speak proper English. They do and the experiment is successful, and he wins his bet. However, the problem is that the wo More...

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Mar 16, 2011

Lisa rated it:

“My Fair Lady” is one of my very favorite musicals. I have avoided reading anything by GBS because I don’t care for his political views and because he was critical of Shakespeare. I actually enjoyed reading this play. It was very close to the “My Fair Lady” script, probably because Shaw also wrote the screenplay. (He was the first person to win both a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award.) The ending of “My Fair Lady” has always been a little unsettling for me. The mythical Pygmalion was a scu More...

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Mar 11, 2011

Dhruva rated it:

Audiobooks are a blessing. Seriously. I can stick my headphones into my ears any time I want and start listening. They go at a speed much slower than my reading rate-- but that's a good thing, because I invariably end up glossing over lines if I start reading too fast (which, again, I invariably end up doing) The first audiobook I listened to this year was Pygmalion, from librivox.org

Honestly, I love My Fair Lady. It's a simply delightful film-- funny, romantic, musical, satirical More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Mar 08, 2011

Alexander rated it:

George Bernard Shaw

Pygmalion
A Romance in Five Acts

Penguin Classics, Paperback, 2003.
8vo. xx, 122pp. Preface by Shaw A Professor of Phonetics [pp. 3-7]. Introduction by Nicholas Grene, 2000 [xiii-xviii].

Written, 1912.
First produced in German [Hofburg Theatre, Vienna], 1913.
First produced in English, 1914.
First published in English, 1916.
The film first produced, 1938.
Revised version with several sequences from the film, More...

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Nov 07, 2010

Erik rated it:

A fantastic way to spend a Sunday. Way better than doing my sociology homework.

Kayso I read this play and then watched it on youtube and these are the main points I took from it.

When Mr. Doolittle and Mr. Higgins talk in Act something, Higgins asks, "Have you no morals?" and Mr. Doolittle replies "I can't afford them." When you haven't got the money to eat, you don't have time for philosophy. We must, of course, cultivate our gardens. This quote is als More...

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Apr 20, 2009

Kris rated it:

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Jan 03, 2010

Alana rated it:

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Jan 16, 2012

Miz Moffatt rated it:

Phonetics professor Henry Higgins has a penchant for studying and collecting the accents found in British society, and his talent for locating a speaker's origins is uncanny (i.e. he can name the birth places of an individual's parents based on that person's accent alone; he can name a person's current residence down to the street based on the lilt in their voice). Following a bet with his friend and fellow linguistic enthusiast Colonel Pickering, Higgins tutors the very Cockney flower girl Eliz More...

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May 26, 2011

Nina rated it:

I watched 'My Fair Lady' with Audrey Hepburn first, and I absolutely loved it. Being a kid when I first watched it, I didn't know it was a play, nor did I know there was a script for it. But of course, with growing up, come the discovering of things. I found this. Pygmalion the play behind 'My Fair Lady' written by George Bernard Shaw is more linguistically motivated than the movie.

I enjoyed the play as much as I enjoyed the movie, keeping in mind that though they are both the More...

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Jul 28, 2010

Neha rated it:

When you read a classic, you have a lot of expectations, because you have heard so much about it, movies or musical plays made on it. You also feel it would be long & would use ‘the perfect’ British English with heavy words thrown around, forcing you to use dictionary. I also started reading Pygmalion with high expectations, and it turned out to be far better than my expectations. It was short & quick, funny & sarcastic, light & classy, intellectual & romantic, drama & comedy, dreamy & real. It More...

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Mar 13, 2011

Kelly rated it:

Well, one of my favorite movies of all time is "My Fair Lady". I know all the words to all the songs and I can almost quote the entire movie. So, reading the original play was very fun for me. I think I like the outcome of the movie better, though. I found the long epilogue at the end of the book very boring and uninteresting. It did need an ending, but this one is proof of why you don't always need to know what happens to them when the story is over. Sometimes it is better to draw you More...

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Mar 10, 2009

Artie rated it:

I never realized how many modern day tales allude to this play! Even Family Guy provides an homage in the episode where Stewie reforms the speech patterns of a little girl named Eliza Pinchley. Not a particularly subtle allusion to the main lady in Pygmalion, Eliza Doolittle. This edition is specifically insightful because it is meant to be the definitive edition with a *long* afterword/epilogue to the story that leaves an otherwise ambiguous future despite the author's intention to leave it More...

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Mar 06, 2011

Jackie rated it:

I wasn't expecting to like this play for some reason but I do. I saw the movie a long time ago, and all I remember are the songs and how the mean guy made the girl get his slippers for some inane reason and he did it at the end too, when they ended up together, which I thought was odd. Now I see why, because the movie is completely different from the original, it actually goes against the main themes. Shaw doesn't go into detail how exactly Eliza is refined from grunty scragamuffin to elegant du More...

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Dec 13, 2011

Lance rated it:

When I was about ten years old, I fell in love with Eliza Doolittle, in the form of Audrey Hepburn. Not long ago I watched the movie "My Fair Lady" again and got to wondering how true it was to the original play. Surprisingly true, as it turns out. There are large passages of dialogue, whole scenes even that agree entirely. So which did I like better? Well, the play is better in that it doesn't include the bad musical numbers (all the ones involving Eliza's father), and worse in that i More...

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Mar 16, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

The sharp and biting tongue of Henry Higgins makes for an enjoyable read oddly enough because he seems merrily oblivious to the feelings of others. He proceeds to tell Colonel Pickering that he will raise 'this guttersnipe' to the status of a duchess, while the guttersnipe (Eliza) remains in hearing. The character of Alfred Doolitte is also rather brilliant with his humourous, honest and logical take on the realities of being poor and why being a member of the undeserving poor is better than bei More...

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Aug 02, 2011

Polina added it

If you think you are familiar with the story of Eliza Doolittle from watching “My Fair Lady” you are in for a shocking revelation! The original story, Pygmalion, as written from George Bernard Shaw is a tad more feminist than that and much more empowering than a mere makeover! (as they would have you believe in the movie and play adaptation).

Apparently, when Pygmalion was first produced in the theatre – whilst Shaw was alive no less- the story was adapted because it was considered unromantic. H More...

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Dec 15, 2010

Stringdoll rated it:

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Apr 12, 2010

Kat rated it:

A fast-paced, witty play set in early 20th century London. Liza and Henry are both intriguing leads, enjoyable to read about. The play is also enjoyable to read aloud as my English teacher instructed us to, though our Henry was more than a tad lackluster (i.e. drove us all mad).

Aside from the first act, the drama neatly finds ways to skip over important events and squish a brief oral synopsis of them in (often less important) scenes. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, merely helps More...

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Apr 05, 2011

Courtney rated it:

I thought the dialogue was pretty clever and the ideas behind the book were interesting enough. Some Victorian class warfare, 19th century sexism, etc etc.

But it's interesting that the parts of the movie we all love so much are not included in the actual play. It's like George Bernard Shaw recognized which scenes would be the funniest and bring the most liveliness to the stage and decided to skip right over them. Like the actual progression of Eliza's speech or the lessons with Higgin More...

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Jul 30, 2011

Garrett rated it:

I had really never read this, and didn't know until I was a page in that it was the play that My Fair Lady was based on. I was like "Harold Higgins? Where have I heard that from..."

Anyway, the absurdity of this story in terms of MFL dogged my head, but it wasn't until I was able to dodge the idea of Barbara Streisand or Audrey Hepburn saying these lines that I was able to concentrate on what the story really is: a realist perspective on the misogynistic man likely trying to get laid. More...

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Dec 02, 2007

Dusty rated it:

Well, I was supposed to read this in college. But didn't. Until ... I decided to teach it to high school kids. They loved it. And I did, too. Except for the unnecessary (IMO) "sequel" Shaw includes to clear up the beautiful but apparently unintentional ambiguity at the end of Act V.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 14, 2008

Dottie rated it:

What fun to revisit a classic such as this and enjoy it as much as ever! And for frosting on the cake, to have the delightful tunes of My Fair Lady replay in one's head for days afterward. Makes me want to pick up The Taming of the Shrew next and duplicate this process.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Jasmine Star rated it:

This was so much fun to read. Of course all I could picture was the movie "My Fair Lady" and Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Dolittle saying, "I'm a good girl I am, I am, I'm a good girl I am!" So funny how the book stirred key images of the movie in my head. I wish I was able to develop more of a unique reaction to the book, but I loved the movie growing up reading the book now as an adult could only add the book as a supplement to the story I already know. The writing was fun, the More...

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Jul 05, 2011

PenNPaper52 rated it:

Eliza Doolittle is perhaps the most famous character of all time. Her precocious attitude, her independence, her dignity contrasts strikingly to her being a flower girl. Picked from the very streets to become a lady, her charm lies in her personality. A woman who is learning to be a Lady, but a Lady on her own counts. She bows down to no one and perhaps that is the very charm, the true essence that entices Professor Henry Higgins. In trying to teach Eliza the true diction to words, and explainin More...

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Dec 14, 2011

Irene rated it:

This was a very quick read. I thought it was very interesting how it all turned out, and there were quite a few funny parts. Of course, what made it all better was my English teacher's interpretations (he played Eliza throughout the entire play); during the part where Eliza throws the slippers at Higgins, my teacher actually took off his shoes and threw them at the boy who was reading Higgins' part. It took forever for us to stop laughing!

This is one of the few great literary books w More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 21, 2011

Emm rated it:

I was surprised to find that the film adaptation of "My Fair Lady" was so remarkably similar to Bernard Shaw's play. Similar that is, if you completely disregard Shaw's rather rambling epilogue in which he explains that Higgins could never be with Eliza because he is still much too in love with his mother as the example of his ideal woman--in love with unrealistic expectations. (HILARIOUS / WONDERFUL)
Quite honestly however, I would just watch the musical. It stays true to the pi More...

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