#46: ‘Cashel Byron’s Profession’ by Bernard Shaw

‘Cashel Byron’s Profession’ is Bernard Shaw’s fictional life story of English champion bare knuckle fighter Cashel Byron.

There are some interesting aspects to this story, namely the aspects around how bouts were arranged and held while under the scrutiny of the local authorities. Because of Bernard Shaw’s firm interest in boxing and its history, it very much feels as though these parts have been influenced by Shaw’s reading of first-hand accounts, probably written by Pierce Egan.

However, the story’s main theme is the protagonist’s attempts to rise up through English society’s cultural strata. If I can avoid ever reading another Victorian-era novel about a person ‘succeeding’ in life by finding a lot of money from an unlikely source and marrying into the upper echelons of society, then I will do all I can to do so. I hate this obsession of authors of this period, and I find it embarrassing that these tropes still influence so much of modern British culture.