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Pygmalion

by Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

  • Free to read
  • 2 hours to read
  • 6 chapters
  • Reading level: 6th grade

"Pygmalion" by Bernard Shaw is a play written in 1912. When phonetics professor Henry Higgins boasts he can transform a Cockney flower girl into a duchess simply by teaching her proper speech, Colonel Pickering takes the bet. Eliza Doolittle arrives at Higgins's door seeking lessons to improve her prospects, setting in motion a social experiment that will test class boundaries and personal transformation. This witty comedy became Shaw's most popular work, later inspiring the musical "My Fair Lady."

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  • Comedy plays
  • Speech and social status
  • London (England)
  • Linguistics teachers
  • Social classes
  • Flower vending

Read the opening

Act I

Covent Garden at 11.15 p.m. Torrents of heavy summer rain. Cab whistles blowing frantically in all directions. Pedestrians running for shelter into the market and under the portico of St. Paul’s Church, where there are already several people, among them a lady and her daughter in evening dress. They are all peering out gloomily at the rain, except one man with his back turned to the rest, who seems wholly preoccupied with a notebook in which he is writing busily.

The church clock strikes the first quarter.

THE DAUGHTER [in the space between the central pillars, close to the one on her left] I’m getting chilled to the bone. What can Freddy be doing all this time? He’s been gone twenty minutes.

THE MOTHER [on her daughter’s right] Not so long. But he ought to have got us a cab by this.

A BYSTANDER [on the lady’s right] He won’t get no cab not until half-past eleven, missus, when they come back after dropping their theatre fares.

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Contents

  1. Front Matter
  2. Act I
  3. Act II
  4. Act III
  5. Act IV
  6. Act V

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About this edition

This free edition of Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #3825, released 2003-03-01. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer. Genre: Plays/Films/Dramas, British Literature.

Summary provided by Project Gutenberg (automatically generated).

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