Max Beerbohm (1872–1956,) fully Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm, was a British essayist, caricaturist, critic, satirist, and novelist. Called “The Incomparable Max” by George Bernard Shaw, he was one of England’s most popular—and at times, much pilloried-men of letters. Beerbohm’s caricatures were unique in capturing the artistic spirit of the age and the pretentious and the absurd in his influential social group.
Born in London, the son of a Lithuanian-born grain merchant Beerbohm was the half-brother Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who was already a renowned stage actor when Max was a child. He was educated at Charterhouse and Merton College, Oxford. He published his first volume of essays (some of which had appeared in the British quarterly literary periodical Yellow Book) under the title The Works of Max Beerbohm (1896.) He succeeded George Bernard Shaw as a drama critic of The Saturday Review 1898 to 1910.
Beerbohm’s tactful, appropriately captioned caricatures were collected in various volumes beginning with Twenty-five Gentlemen (1896) and Poet’s Corner (1904.) Further volumes of parodies and stories were Happy Hypocrite (1897,) A Christmas Garland (1912,) and And Even Now (1920.)
Beerbohm was a central figure of the Aesthetic Movement. His best-known work was his only novel, Zuleika Dobson (1912,) a brilliant Edwardian satire on Oxford life. His broadcast talks from 1935 were another of his singularly gifted stylistic accomplishments, which also included the successful collection of stories, Seven Men (1919.)
American biographer N John Hall wrote Max Beerbohm: A Kind of Life (2002.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Max Beerbohm
To give and then not feel that one has given is the very best of all ways of giving.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Service, Charity, Kindness, Giving
To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. A conceited man is satisfied with the effect he produces on himself.
—Max Beerbohm
Every one, even the richest and most munificent of men, pays much by cheque more light-heartedly than he pays little in specie.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Money
It is easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality.
—Max Beerbohm
I was a modest, good-humored boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Education, Universities
No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Sacrifice, Work
Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.
—Max Beerbohm
There is much to be said for failure. It is more interesting than success.
—Max Beerbohm
Only the insane take themselves quite seriously.
—Max Beerbohm
The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Reflection, Past
One might well say that mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Man
The loveliest face in all the world will not please you if you see it suddenly eye to eye, at a distance of half an inch from your own.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Beauty
I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect, either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Opportunities, Genius, Reality
How many charming talents have been spoiled by the instilled desire to do ‘important’ work! Some people are born to lift heavy weights. Some are born to juggle with golden balls.
—Max Beerbohm
Nobody ever died of laughter.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Laughter
By its very looseness, by its way of evoking rather than defining, suggesting rather than saying, English is a magnificent vehicle for emotional poetry.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Writing
They were a tense and peculiar family, the Oedipuses, weren’t they?
—Max Beerbohm
The Non-Conformist Conscience makes cowards of us all.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Conscience
The dullard’s envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Greatness, Greatness & Great Things
Old friends are generally the refuge of unsociable persons.
—Max Beerbohm
To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: History
It seems to be a law of nature that no man, unless he has some obvious physical deformity, ever is loth to sit for his portrait.
—Max Beerbohm
She was one of those people who said “I don’t know anything about music, but I know what I like.”
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Music
Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Mediocrity
Men of genius are not quick judges of character. Deep thinking and high imagining blunt that trivial instinct by which you and I size people up.
—Max Beerbohm
Topics: Genius
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Peter Ustinov British Actor, Playwright
Ford Madox Ford English Novelist, Poet, Critic
Herbert Beerbohm Tree English Actor-Manager
Stephen Spender English Poet, Critic
J. R. R. Tolkien British Philologist, Writer
Douglas Adams British Author
John Berger English Art Critic, Essayist, Novelist
Stephen Fry English Actor, Writer
Jackie Collins English Romance Novelist
Salman Rushdie Indian-born British Novelist