THE FOLIO SOCIETY

‘A hundred eyes were fixed on her, and half as many hearts lost to her.’

The dazzling daughter of a curate and a circus-rider, Zuleika Dobson is the world's most celebrated conjurer, and is used to men falling in love with her. When she arrives at Judas College, Oxford, to visit her grandfather, her beauty and charms very nearly cause a stampede among the undergraduates. The Duke of Dorset is particularly smitten, but Zuleika insists that she can never love anyone who is not impervious to her charms. When the Duke disregards an ancient family curse and sets his heart on Zuleika, the comic and fanciful become blended with the poignant and tragic in this uniquely English fable.

Max Beerbohm was a critic, essayist, caricaturist and perennially sought-after dinner-party guest in smart Mayfair circles. Zuleika Dobson is his only novel and a joy to read. Romantic, witty and satirical, it is a sparkling fantasy of university life in Edwardian England, and undoubtedly draws on his own time at Oxford as a member of Oscar Wilde's set. Beerbohm creates a magnificently eccentric golden world, where the Duke rides a polo pony down the street and the statues of Roman emperors break into a sweat at the sight of Zuleika’s beauty.

Zuleika Dobson was rapturously received at the time of its publication in 1911. A product of a golden age of English literary humour, it is a rare combination of beauty and comic oddity reminiscent of Saki and Wilde – perfectly captured, in this edition, by Michael Kirkham's charming modernist illustrations.