Seven Men [Paperback]

In Seven Men the brilliant English caricaturist and critic Max Beerbohm turns his comic searchlight upon the fantastic fin-de-siècle world of the 1890s—the age of Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, and the young Yeats, as well of Beerbohm's own first success. In a series of luminous sketches, Beerbohm captures the likes of Enoch Soames, only begetter of the neglected poetic masterwork Fungoids; Maltby and Braxton, two fashionable novelists caught in a bitter rivalry; and "Savonarola" Brown, author of a truly incredible tragedy encompassing the entire Italian Renaissance. One of the masterpieces of modern humorous writing, Seven Men is also a shrewdly perceptive, heartfelt homage to the wonderfully eccentric character of a bygone age. Don’t miss the arch-decadent Enoch Soames and the fortunetelling A.V. Laider.  —Michael Dirda, Washington Post, List of 66 Favorite Books

As a parodist, he is probably the finest in English. —W.H. Auden


The most faultless of my contemporaries...I prefer Seven Men to all his other books. —Bertrand Russell

Not even a good comedy is so rare as genuine satire, and when an example of the latter is produced some indulgence in superlatives may be excused. In the case of [Seven Men] it is difficult to restrain praise within the bounds of judgment, for its beneficent, limpid ridicule is an undiluted joy. —The SpectatorSir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm (1872-1956) was born in London and studied at Oxford. He published his first collection of essays, entitled The Works of Max Beerbohm, in 1896 and soon established a reputation as a brilliant caricaturist and critic. He was married to the American actress Florence Kahn and l@