Cashel Byron's Profession

Shaw wrote five novels early in his career and then abandoned them to pursue politics, drama criticism and eventually play writing.

The novel follows Cashel Byron, a world champion prizefighter, as he tries to woo wealthy aristocrat Lydia Carew without revealing his illegal profession.

As in his postscript to "Pygmalion" (1912), in which he describes Eliza Doolittle's future life, Shaw chose to portray the Byron marriage in a realistic manner and narrates how Lydia comes to regard Cashel as "one of the children".

According to "Note on Modern Prizefighting" (1901) Shaw intended the fights described in Cashel Byron's Profession to turn the public away from the sport but the novel is written in such a light-hearted tone this unlikely result never materialized.

It is all mad, mad and deliriously delightful; the author has a taste in chivalry like Walter Scott’s or Dumas’, and then he daubs in little bits of socialism; he soars away on the wings of the romantic griffon—even the griffon, as he cleaves air, shouting with laughter at the nature of the quest—and I believe in his heart he thinks he is labouring in a quarry of solid granite realism.