Max Beerbohm Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Max Beerbohm is a short fiction writer, essayist, critic, and caricaturist that has been called one of the leading satirists of the Edwardian era in England.

The author was born in 1872 in London to a large and prosperous family of German Baltic descent. He was born into a family of creative and talented people that were renowned in their field.
Among his siblings was Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the theatrical manager and flamboyant actor, and Julius Beerbohm the explorer and author.

Growing up, he was a sophisticated kid that drank champagne when he turned ten and regularly read “Punch” magazine.

While he was a student at the Surrey-based Charterhouse School, he used to amuse classmates and masters with prose parodies and irreverent caricatures.

At eighteen years old, he enrolled at Oxford’s Merton Colee, where he fast gained a reputation as a dandy and aesthete. He used to be a good-humored and modest boy and he believes it was the college that made him insufferable.

His reputation soon spread to London and he was soon in the literary circles of Oscar Wilde. In 1894 he was a contributor to “A Defense of Cosmetics,” a satiric essay that was featured in the “Yellow Book.”

Max would win a huge audience when he published his first volume of essays in 1896 titled “The Works of Max Beerbohm.”

This turned out to be his ultimate statement of the period as it comes with many of his famous reminiscences of Oxford and meditations on dandyism. Soon after that, he devoted himself to the writing of charming pieces on any topic that struck his fancy.

The many essays he wrote in the likes of “Variety of Things,” “Yet Again,” and “Mor” are a reflection of his lifelong beliefs that nonsense about important matters will never trump good sense in trivialities.

According to Virginia Woolf, Mr. Beerbohm gave himself in the essay. He showcases how he is affected by private sorrows and joys as he had no learning to impart and no gospel to preach.

In his debut work, he was directly and simply being himself, which is what he has remained over the years. He makes use of the tools at his disposal to bring personality into his literature.
He does so consciously and with a pure heart so that he allows his readers to find connections between Mr. Beerbohm the man and Max the essayist.

Throughout the work permeates the spirit of personality that is what made him the great artist that he was.

Max Beerbohm got a lot of fame for his comic sketches of celebrities, politicians, and literary figures. He was impudent in lampooning everyone from the Prince of Wales, Oscar Wilde, Queen Victoria, and Henry James.

Beerbohm has said that his most successful caricatures were those that accurately exaggerated the peculiarities of human nature.

Over the years, he would publish several acclaimed drawings and exhibit in London galleries some of the most popular caricatures.

According to the Spectator, his works come with barbed insight and with, even though most of the caricatures do not have any malice.

In 1898, he started working at “Saturday Review” where he replaced popular drama critic Bernard Shaw, who believed that it was time to make way for the younger generation.

For the next 12 years, Beerbohm wrote some brilliant reviews of the works of famous playwrights such as Shaw, Strindberg, and Ibsen among many others.

He also wrote three volumes of criticisms that are still revered as some of the most important of the early twentieth-century London stage.

While he never produced a lot of fiction, the little that he did produce had a lot of whimsical inventions, which is what made his works so memorable.

“Zuleika Dobson” by Max Beerbohm is a beautiful Edwardian-era work about a paranoid sexual fantasy.

The lead is an eponymous heroine who personifies feminine desirability. She is one of the most beautiful women in the two atmospheres and is used to traveling to the capitals of Europe.
Madrid has been known to throw a bullfight when she visits, Paris has fallen prostrate at her feet, the Pope declared a Bull to counter her influence, while the Grand Duke of Petersburg fell for her charms.
Now laden with too many dresses and jewels, she has arrived in Oxford where she becomes even more powerful.

It is not long before every undergraduate in Oxford developed an obsession with her. They have ultimately resolved to commit suicide for her sake.

Zuleika is described as a delicate, warm, and vagrom breeze in league with death, which makes her a strangely insubstantial creature.

She does not care for anybody and initially, she believes that the Duke of Dorset the arch dandy is impervious to her charms. It is not long before she is violently in love, but once she discovers that he has also fallen for her, she goes off him.

The old truism about over-interest being unattractive is explicitly expressed in this work.

Max Beerbohm’s novel “Enoch Soames” reads like intelligent creative writing that was initially published in 1916. The work involves Max telling stories from his own life at a time when he met Enoch Soames, a very peculiar poet.

The poet claims to write just because he loves writing and feels like he is an expert on good taste and understanding. As Max makes friends with the man and gets to know him he comes to know a peculiar fact about the man.

Still, much of the book is all about what seems like a fantastical event that Enoch Soames had to deal with. It was something that impacted Max Beerbohm to a great degree even though he does not give too many details about it.

It is a well-written and interesting story that transports the reader to the special and beautiful world of young writers in 1890s London.

The author has a very good representation of the Edwardian period as he makes references to real historical people and literary currents.

It makes it easier to observe the satirical world of writers, including the constant struggles of lower-level authors, who strive to rise above literary obscurity as they seek recognition.