Sybil Thorndike was the grand dame of the London Theater, and Shaw wrote the title role of Saint Joan specifically for her. Canonized in 1920, Joan of Arc immediately became the subject of many works, and Thorndike was slated to play her in another production, by Laurence Binyon. When the actress told Shaw of her dilemma, he replied, “Sybil is to play my Joan; let someone else play Binyon’s.” Within days, Binyon withdrew his claim on the actress.

Shaw had wanted to write about Joan of Arc since a 1913 visit to Orleans, France, the site of her troops’ victory over the English, but it wasn’t until her canonization in 1920, and at the urging of his wife, that Shaw set about the task. In Joan, he saw an inspired individualist, a vivid imagination, a genius based on common sense. Her pithy responses at her trial appealed to his own sharp tongue, and in fact, he used some of her words verbatim.

Saint Joan was cited in his 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature, which he was awarded for his works’ “idealism and humanity” and “singular poetic beauty,” according to the Swedish Academy. Though he consistently declined honors and degrees, he accepted the Prize to establish a foundation for promoting knowledge of Swedish literature in England.