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A glamorous young performer arrives at Oxford, where her grandfather is Warden of Judas College

Zuleika Dobson

by Max Beerbohm

1911Moderate readSteady pace
★ Modern Library 100 Best Novels (editors' list, 1998), No. 59

A celebrated young performer arrives at an all-male Oxford college

Zuleika Dobson is a glamorous young prestidigitator and former governess who arrives in Oxford, where her grandfather is Warden of Judas College. Her beauty captivates the male students, and the Duke of Dorset, a snobbish and emotionally detached undergraduate, becomes deeply infatuated with her. The novel satirizes undergraduate life in Edwardian Oxford. Heinemann published it on 26 October 1911, and it is Beerbohm's only novel.

More about this book

Who

Zuleika Dobson, the Duke of Dorset, Noaks and the Warden of Judas College.

World

Oxford University in the Edwardian era.

What makes it different

Beerbohm wrote it between 1898 and 1910 and considered it the work of an essayist rather than a novelist. It contains the line "Death cancels all engagements."

Feel

Arch and witty.

See it on Amazon

Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition

Further reading

About the author

Max Beerbohm1 book on Tori Books