Volume 6, Number 10 · June 9, 1966
Beerbohm: The Rigors of Fantasy
By F.W. Dupee
Zuleika (pronounced Zuleeka) Dobson was first published in London in 1911. Other editions followed in Britain and America. The book entered the Modern Library early, when the volumes making up that series were still few and smelt of frivolity, sin, and oilcloth—or whatever those simulated limp leather covers were made of. Like South Wind, Zuleika Dobson was obligatory reading for those literary initiates of the Twenties whose program included, on principle, an appreciation alike of the trifler and the titan: Douglas with Dreiser and Dostoevsky, Beerbohm with Prous and Joyce. In Aspects of the Novel (1927), E. M. Forster called Zuleika Dobson 'the most consistent achievement of fantasy in our time.' 'Our time' meant, presumably, the Teens and Twenties. When the Twenties ended, Beerbohm rather faded from one's consciousness.
Feature, 6465 words
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