Alan Jay Lerner

This is the fascinating story of 150 years of the musical theatre by one of the great legends of Broadway. Filled with inside stories and backstage anecdotes, this book traces the fascinating development of the musical, which had its origins in Offenbach's Vienna, came to Gilbert and Sullivan's London, and finally landed in America, where it found its finest flowering.

The Holt McDougal Library includes a mix of fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, and biographies from a variety of reading levels for use as part of classroom curriculum or independent reading. Students will find selections they love in this extensive collection. [Pygmalion]: flower girl is transformed into princess : play / by Bernard Shaw -- Story of Pygmalion from The metamorphoses : a sculptor falls in love with the statue he creates : poem / by Ovid ; translated by Rolfe Humphries -- Excerpt from My fair lady : a musical version of Pygmalion : play / by Alan Jay Lerner -- Her first ball : she could have danced all night : short story / by Katherine Mansfield -- The London language from The story of English : what is cockney? : essay / by Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert Mac Neil -- Mother tongue : a fiction writer and the language that nurtured her : essay / by Amy Tan -- Two words : a story about language and power : short story / by Isabel Allende ; translated by Alberto Manguel -- The model : what lies behind the artist's gaze? : short story / by Bernard Malamud -- Words : in defense of bad grammar : poem / by Vern Rutsala.

The ancient Greeks tell the legend of the sculptor Pygmalion, who created a statue of a woman of such surpassing beauty that he fell in love with his own creation. Then Aphrodite, taking pity on this man whose love could not reach beyond the barrier of stone, brought the statue to life and gave her to Pygmalion as his bride. Centuries later George Bernard Shaw captured the magic of this legend in his celebrated romantic play, Pygmalion. Pygmalion became Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, his statue an untutored flower girl from the streets of London, and the barrier between them the difference in their stations in life. In My Fair Lady, the legend is taken one step further: the barrier is swept away and Higgins and Eliza are reunited as the curtain falls on one of the loveliest musical plays of our time. --back cover