BIOGRAPHY

Michael Holroyd, Bernard Shaw: The One-Volume Definitive Edition. This meticulously revised 864-page redaction of Holroyd’s massive four-volume biography, published in 1997, improves on the original by trimming away the endless digressions, putting the focus squarely on the complex relationship between Shaw’s life and work. Sympathetic but never hagiographic, Bernard Shaw strikes a proper balance between the major and minor plays, makes no excuses for the playwright’s totalitarian inclinations, and tells you everything you need to know in an unfailingly readable way (TT).