First play

In 1884, Shaw began writing the dialogue for a play, after drama critic William Archer wrote the plot. It was abandoned until 1892 after Shaw used up all the projected plot in half the play. His strength lay in dialogue; he admitted he was not “a plot-monger”.

Shaw remained a boarder in his mother's home until 1889, leaving only when he got married. Though Shaw experimented with drama from his early twenties he did not see a play of his produced on stage until 1892 with Widowers' Houses, a dramatized socialist tract on slumlordism.

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