Max Beerbohm: A Kind of Life - Hardcover

Hall, Professor N. John; Hall, N. John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300097050 ISBN 13: 9780300097054

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2002

Synopsis

Max Beerbohm was widely celebrated as the wittiest mind of his age. And it was a very long age indeed: he became famous in the mid-1890s and remained so until his death in 1956. His wit manifested itself in both prose and caricature, and his writings and drawings are keenly interesting. Max’s life, however, was relatively uneventful, and of interest, he said, only to himself. This biography of Beerbohm, the first in forty years, enlivens his story by quoting him whenever possible, and the result―thanks to Max himself―is a scintillating and entertaining book.

John Hall moves quickly through Max’s history: schoolboy; college undergraduate; London caricaturist, journalist, and critic; Edwardian social butterfly; married man and self-exile to Italy in 1910, where he produced numerous books, essays, and caricatures; and, from 1935 to 1956, occasional BBC radio broadcaster. Hall notes that although all Max’s work during his fifteen early years on the London scene concerned contemporary art and life, after his “retirement” in 1910 his writings and drawings harkened back to the late-Victorian/Edwardian era and even to the Pre-Raphaelites; he became, he said, an “interesting link with the past.”

This book, like Beerbohm’s work, highlights his connection with various eminences over three eras: Algernon Swinburne, J.A.M. Whistler, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, George Bernard Shaw, Lytton Strachey, Virginia Woolf, and many others. Written in an idiosyncratic, opinionated, lively, quirky style, it is just the kind of biography of which Max might have (for the most part) approved.

About this title

About the Author

N. John Hall is Distinguished Professor of English, Bronx Community College and the Graduate School, City University of New York.

Reviews

In what may strike readers as an oddly squeamish (not to mention oxymoronic) way to begin a biography, Hall asserts that he will respect his subject's wish that his private life remain a mystery, and he will instead focus only on his public life and his writings and drawings. Yet Hall, a professor of English at CUNY, goes on to say that Beerbohm's gifts as a writer and caricaturist, however celebrated during his life (1872-1956), were ultimately insignificant-"Max does certain small things extraordinarily well, or, in the case of fiction, he makes but a `small' contribution"-leaving the reader to ponder the need for a biography. But Beerbohm created a witty, ultra-dandified persona whose glittering aura has more than made up for the talent that he lacked. After graduating from Oxford, he set out to befriend the best and the brightest (and sometimes the most controversial) figures of his day, including Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, George Bernard Shaw, James Whistler, Henry James and Virginia Woolf. Although Hall inexplicably finds "comfort" in staying "out of Max's private life," he occasionally finds himself guiltily (and almost repugnantly) flirting with such personal issues as Beerbohm's rumored homosexuality and his disavowal of his purported Jewishness. In the end, this is a biography about an ingeniously sycophantic man who had a talent for acquiring fabulously interesting, brilliantly creative friends. It is they who come vibrantly alive on the page. 18 b&w and 10 color illus.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This intriguingly conceived biography reads like a familiar letter, i.e., it will be referenced often for its facts, observations, charm, inviting style, sense of fun and whimsy, and contagious affection for its subject, Max Beerbohm-essayist, critic, and caricaturist. Both fair-minded and lightly satirical, Hall (English, Bronx Community Coll. and Graduate Sch., CUNY) offers an astute analysis of Beerbohm's writings and drawings, as well as his dandyism, friendships, antagonisms, and chaste marriage. Hall offers insightful use of Beerbohm's own words, as well as those of W.H. Auden, Virginia Woolf, Evelyn Waugh, and others to reveal the often illusive and sometimes exclusive Beerbohm. Beerbohm's critical reservations concerning the writings of Shaw and Kipling, as well as his reverence for Lytton Stachey, Algernon Swinburne, and Henry James, are profiled wisely, taking into account his own enthusiasms and bias. Citing examples, Hall makes it clear that Oscar Wilde and William Makepeace Thackeray influenced Beerbohm's writing style and that his best writing and caricatures came after 1910, when he resided in Italy with his wife, Florence. Beerbohm's radio broadcasts with the BBC are also excerpted here. Hall has written a perceptive and winning biography that should not be overlooked.
Robert L. Kelly, Fort Wayne Community Schs., IN
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300097050
• ISBN 13: 9780300097054
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304