It was astounding that I had forgotten George Bernard Shaw, in writing about classic British prose writers of the twentieth century, and my surprise is compounded by the fact that two erudite friends from whom I invited suggestions did not recommend him either. One of them declared he was an insufferable old bore, but, though I can understand the comment, that is not the whole story, and his achievements were certainly considerable.

It is possible that in my memory, he, or at least his most influential work, belonged to an earlier period, given that both Plays Pleasant and Plays Unpleasant had been published in 1898. However, the essence of a play is production, and only three of the seven plays in the two volumes were produced in the 1890s. Indeed, Mrs Warren's Profession, recognizably the least pleasant of them since it dealt with prostitution, was publicly produced only in 1925, though it had a private performance in 1902.

The plays that Shaw perhaps saw as his most important, Man and Superman and Major Barbara, were published early in the century, while his most popular plays, Pygmalion and Androcles and the Lion, came out in 1912. Shaw was, by then, well into his fifties, but he was still to write St Joan, which turned the story of the brave woman soldier on its head, and also The Millionairess, when he was 80. This was turned into a memorable film with Peter Sellers a couple of decades later, when Pygmalion was also transformed into ‘My Fair Lady’.