Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw finished writing his best loved play, Pygmalion, a story of English societal class stratification and transformation, in 1912 and it premiered in Germany, of all places, in October of 1913.

The play was inspired by the Greek myth where Pygmalion, a sculptor, fell in love with his ivory creation which was later recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphosis.

The play has been adapted to film and stage in various forms including Shaw’s 1938 film, Pygmalion. The film was then adapted as a Broadway hit musical in the 1956 My Fair Lady by Lerner and Loewe starring Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison, which was then recreated into the 1964 Academy Award winning, blockbuster film of the same name starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison.

A truly timeless story.

Source: Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, 1912. Myths Encyclopedia. Metamorphoses by Ovid, c. 8 AD. Classics.mit.edu/Ovid. Graphic: Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Eliza Doolittle, 1913, Public Domain.