Zuleika Dobson
Beerbohm’s only novel is a deadpan fantasy of mass infatuation. When Zuleika Dobson, a beautiful conjuror with no real talent beyond her charm, arrives in Oxford to visit her grandfather, every undergraduate falls hopelessly in love at first sight. She, in turn, can only love a man immune to her, so the smitten Duke of Dorset and his fellow students drift toward a course as absurd as it is fatal. Beerbohm plays the whole tragedy for elegant comedy, mocking Edwardian Oxford, romantic excess, and vanity on both sides with equal relish. The prose is polished to a high sheen, and the wit never once breaks its poised, mischievous surface. First published in 1911. Free to read here in PDF and EPUB.
About the Author
Max Beerbohm (1872-1956) was an English essayist, caricaturist, and parodist, one of the defining wits of the 1890s and a contributor to The Yellow Book. Celebrated for his elegant satire and drawings of famous contemporaries, he also wrote the comic novel Zuleika Dobson.
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