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Holroyd's biography is, he says, the first major one of Shaw since a spate of centenary tributes in 1956, and among the first in which the subject was not an unacknowledged co-author. Holroyd was chosen by the beneficiaries of Shaw's estate -- the British Museum, London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland -- and in consequence appears to have been able to unearth some new nuggets, although he offers no footnotes and has put off detailing his sources until after publication of his third volume. The advance from Holroyd's British publisher, Chatto & Windus, was about $1 million, surely a record for a pen portrait of a deceased author.
What is striking about the book, however, is that it is so entertaining. Holroyd manages to make each successive phase of Shaw's life seem significant of itself, rather than simply as a foretoken of what was to come or as raw material for the plays. Even minor figures often have a Dickensian vividness. Each romantic indiscretion has its own distinct flavor; Holroyd pinpoints which of Shaw's innumerable affairs he believes were consummated, and quotes bawdy letters in proof. Even more precisely evoked are Shaw's nonsexual passions for comrades in causes, from his schoolmate Matthew McNulty to his literary ally William Archer and his Fabian Society partner Sidney Webb. In a review, Shaw urged authors to shape their stories to suit their characters, rather than vice versa. Holroyd aptly allows each relationship to flower on the page without overtly fitting it into his larger architectural intent.
Equally, he appreciates Shaw's arch humor. He cites deadpan a letter to the editor in which Shaw "wrote of Jack the Ripper as an 'independent genius' who by 'private enterprise' had succeeded where socialism failed in getting the press to take some sympathetic interest in the conditions of London's East End." Recalling Shaw's epistolary romance with actress Ellen Terry, he quotes a vintage bit of Shavian grumping: "Let those who may complain that it was all on paper remember that only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love." Describing the tergiversations that led up to the marriage, Holroyd trenchantly observes, "Politically, Shaw had put his faith in the power of words to inspire action. But in his personal life he employed words to avoid taking action." By the end of this fascinating volume, Holroyd provides not only a sense of what it must have been like to know Shaw but also, far more enriching, a sense of what it must have been like to be Shaw.