EncyclopediaBeerbohm, Sir Max
Beerbohm, Sir Max (bēr'bōm) [key], 1872–1956, English essayist, caricaturist, and parodist. He contributed to the famous Yellow Book while still an undergraduate at Oxford. In 1898 he succeeded G. B. Shaw as drama critic for the Saturday Review. A charming, witty, and elegant man often called “the incomparable Max,” Beerbohm was a brilliant parodist and the master of a polished prose style. His works include A Christmas Garland (1912), a collection of parodies on such authors as Joseph Conrad and Thomas Hardy; Zuleika Dobson (1911), an amusing satire on Oxford; Seven Men (1919), stories; and And Even Now (1920) and Mainly on the Air (1947), essays. Beerbohm was accomplished at drawing, and he published several volumes of excellent caricatures, including The Poet's Corner (1904) and Rossetti and His Circle (1922). He was knighted in 1939 on his return from Italy, where he had lived from 1910.
See collections ed. by S. C. Roberts (1962) and D. Cecil (1971); biographies by D. Cecil (1964) and N. J. Hall (2002); studies by B. Lynch (1974), and L. Danson (1989).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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