Beerbohm, Sir (Henry) Max(imilian), called the Incomparable Max 1872-1956
English writer and caricaturist

Born in London, the son of a Lithuanian corn merchant, and half-brother of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, he was educated at Charterhouse and Merton College, Oxford. He published his first volume of essays (some of which had appeared in the Yellow Book) under the ironic title The Works of Max Beerbohm (1896). He succeeded George Bernard Shaw as drama critic of The Saturday Review, until 1910, when he married a US actress, Florence Kahn (d.1951), and went to live, except during the two World Wars, in Rapallo, Italy. His delicate, unerring, aptly-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) and A Christmas Garland (1912), full of gentle humour, elegance, and rare wit, and ending with And Even Now (1920). His best-known work was his only novel, Zuleika Dobson (1912), an ironic romance of Oxford undergraduate life. His broadcast talks from 1935 were another of his singularly brilliant stylistic accomplishments. A month before his death he married Elizabeth Jungmann, his late wife's greatest friend.

Bibliography: Lord Edward C D G Cecil, Max: a biography (1964)