My Fair Lady is based closely on the play Pygmalion by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, which was first published in 1914. Shaw (1856-1950) was one of the most prolific and influential English playwrights of the 20th century, penning over 60 plays in his lifetime. Shaw subscribed to the movement of social realism, which aimed to combat the idealization of beauty in art and instead show the ugliness of reality—especially the reality of the lower classes—to reveal oppression and injustice and to advocate for social change. Shaw was staunchly political and believed that all art ought to be didactic for the purposes of teaching the public a new morality. His trademark style of intellectual wit and biting political satire became known as “Shavian.” Some of Shaw’s well-known plays include Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1893), Man and Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905), and Saint Joan (1923).

Pygmalion stands out as one of Shaw’s most popular plays, premiering in Vienna in 1913 and debuting on the West End and Broadway in 1914, the same year it appeared in print. Shaw was inspired by the Greek myth of “Pygmalion and Galatea,” in which Pygmalion is a sculptor who despises women and sees them all as sex workers.