In the early decades of the twentieth century, Max Beerbohm (1872-1956) was a well-known caricaturist, drama critic, and essayist, one of England's most popular--and at times, much pilloried--men of letters.

Born in London on August 24, 1872, Henry Maximilian Beerbohm was the last of several children of a Lithuanian-born grain merchant, Julius Ewald Beerbohm. His mother was Eliza Draper Beerbohm, the sister of Julius's late first wife. It was a well-to-do London family, and Max grew up with the four sisters from his father's second marriage. He was also close to four half-siblings, one of whom, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, was already a renowned stage actor when Max was a child.

An Undergraduate Prodigy

Beerbohm attended the Charterhouse School, a respected private academy for boys, and did reasonably well there. As a teen he became known for his wit and talent for sketching hilarious caricatures of his teachers and classmates. In...