Max Beerbohm and the Act of Writing.

Max Beerbohm was an elusive and marginal genius--marginal in the sense that he always assumed the role of parodist, looking in from the edges, and taking a literary position shunned by more mainstream artists. In this study of Max Beerbohm's writings and drawings, many of which are reproduced, Danson rediscovers Beerbohm in all his phases and transformations, from the relatively well-known Zuleika Dobson, Seven Men, and Rossetti and his Circle, to the previously unknown, abandoned novella The Mirror of the Past. He shows how Beerbohm's unusual essays turn into fiction as we read them, how his fiction turns into parody, his parody into criticism, his criticism into caricature, and his caricatures into essays--all the time remaining his own best literary caricature, the incomparable and impeccable "Max".

Lawrence Danson, Professor of English, Princeton University.