born Aug. 24, 1872, London, Eng.
died May 20, 1956, Rapallo, Italy
English caricaturist, writer, and dandy.
His sophisticated drawings and parodies were unique in capturing, usually without malice, whatever was pretentious, affected, or absurd in his famous and fashionable contemporaries. His first literary collection, The Works of Max Beerbohm (1896), and his first book of drawings, Caricatures of Twenty-five Gentlemen (1896), were followed by the charming fable The Happy Hypocrite (1897) and his only novel, Zuleika Dobson (1911), a burlesque of Oxford life. His story collection Seven Men (1919) is considered a masterpiece.