Shaw’s mother tries to earn a living per forming and teaching Vandeleur Lee’s singing method.

1876Elinor Agnes dies on March 27. Shaw joins his mother, his sister Lucy, and Vandeleur Lee in London. Although he tries to support himself as a writer, for the next five years Shaw remains financially dependent on his mother.
1877Shaw ghostwrites music reviews that appear under Van deleur Lee’s byline in his column for the Hornet, a London newspaper. This first professional writing “job” lasts until the editor discovers the subterfuge.
1879Shaw completes and serializes his first novel, Immaturity. He works for the Edison Telephone Company and later
will record his experience in his second novel, The Irrational Knot. Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House premieres.
1880Shaw completes The Irrational Knot.
1881He becomes a vegetarian in the hope that the change in his diet will relieve his migraine headaches. He completes Love Among Artists. The Irrational Knot is serialized in Our Corner, a monthly periodical.
1882Shaw hears Henry George’s lecture on land nationaliza tion, which inspires some of his socialist ideas. He attends meetings of the Social Democratic Federation and is intro duced to the works of Karl Marx.
1883The Fabian Society—a middle-class socialist debating group advocating progressive, nonviolent reform rather than the revolution supported by the Social Democratic Federation—is founded in London. Shaw completes the novel Cashel Byron’s Profession, drawing on his experience as an amateur boxer. He writes his final novel, An Unsocial Socialist.
1884Shaw joins the fledgling Fabian Society; he contributes to many of its pamphlets, including The Fabian Manifesto (1884), The Impossibilities of Anarchism (1893), and Socialism for Millionaires (1901), and begins speaking publicly around London on social and political issues. An Unsocial Socialist is serialized in the periodical Today.
1885The author’s father, a longtime alcoholic, dies; neither his estranged wife nor his children attend his funeral. Shaw himself never drinks or smokes. He begins writing criticism of music, art, and literature for the Pall Mall Gazette, the Dramatic Review, and Our Corner. Cashel Byron’s Profession is serialized in the periodical Today.
1886Shaw begins writing art and music criticism for the World. Cashel Byron’s Profession is published.
1887Swedish dramatist and writer August Strindberg’s play The Father is performed. The Social Democratic Federation’s
planned march on Trafalgar Square ends in bloodshed as police suppress the protesters; Shaw is a speaker at the event. His novel An Unsocial Socialist is published in book form.
1888Shaw begins writing music criticism in the Star under the pen name Corno di Bassetto (“basset horn,” perhaps a ref erence to the pitch of his voice).
1889He edits the volume Fabian Essays in Socialism, to which he contributes “The Economic Basis of Socialism” and “The Transition to Social Democracy.”
1890Ibsen completes Hedda Gabler.
1891Ibsen’s Ghosts is performed in London. Shaw publishes The Quintessence of Ibsenism, a polemical pamphlet that cele brates Ibsen as a rebel for leftist causes.
1892Sidney Webb, a founder and close associate of Shaw, is elected to the London City Council along with five other Fabian Society members. Widowers’ Houses, Shaw’s first “unpleasant” play, is performed on the London stage.
1893Shaw writes The Philanderer and Mrs. Warren’s Profession, his two other “unpleasant” plays. The latter is refused a license by the royal censor because its subject is prostitution; as a result, the play is not performed until 1902. Widowers’ Houses is published.
1894Seeking a wider audience, Shaw begins a series of “pleas ant” plays with Arms and the Man, produced this year, and Candida, a successful play about marriage greatly influ enced by Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.
1895Shaw writes another “pleasant” play, The Man of Destiny, a one-act about Napoleon, and drama criticism for the Saturday Review.
1896Shaw completes the fourth “pleasant” play, You Never Can Tell. He meets Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a wealthy Irish heiress and fellow Fabian. The Nobel Prizes are established for physics, medicine, chemistry, peace, and literature.
1897Candida is produced. The Devil’s Disciple, a drama set dur ing the American Revolution, is successfully staged in New York. Shaw is elected as councilor for the borough of St. Pancras, London; he will serve in this position until 1903.
1898Shaw writes Caesar and Cleopatra and publishes Mrs. Warren’s Profession and The Perfect Wagnerite. His first anthology of plays, Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant, is published. He falls ill and, believing his illness fatal, marries his friend and nurse Charlotte Payne-Townshend; his wife’s fortune makes Shaw wealthy.
1899You Never Can Tell premieres. Shaw writes Captain Brass bound’s Conversion.
1900The Fabian Society, the Independent Labour Party, and the Social Democratic Federation join forces to form the Labour Representation Party, which is politically allied to the trade union movement. The party wins two seats in the House of Commons.