British · 1872–1956
Max Beerbohm perfected the art of elegant mockery. His essays and caricatures skewered the literary and social world of Edwardian England with devastating precision. Zuleika Dobson, his only novel, satirized Oxford with such affectionate wit that the university claimed it as tribute rather than attack. Beerbohm succeeded Bernard Shaw as drama critic for The Saturday Review, though he preferred ridicule to Shaw's sermonizing. His caricatures captured public figures through exaggeration that revealed character. He spent decades in Italy, producing occasional pieces that maintained his reputation for urbane perfection. Virginia Woolf called him 'the prince of his profession.'