More

Max Beerbohm presents in More a collection of twenty brilliantly amusing essays. In a wide-ranging tour through both the inspiring and the ridiculous in English fin de siecle society, Beerbohm casts a veiled critical drubbing here, and a wistful though sprightly appreciation there, thoroughly entertaining us and accurately spearing his victims. Some of his most noted work appeared in this second little volume when it was first published in 1899. In “Punch” he asks us if the magazine’s terrible dullness is not our own fault; in An Infamous Brigade the question is revolved as to whether the fire engine is not an infernal machine designed to dampen our pleasure; in The Blight on the Music Halls we must critically consider the relative merits of vulgarity and refinement; in Ouida the famed enthusiastic author’s wild colour and occasional infelicities are justly celebrated; in Arise, Sir — —! the decorations offered to literary time-servers are the saucy target; in A Cloud of Pinafores the cult of childlike simplicity tempts the author’s tongue, and sharpens its point… With razor-edged wit and a perfect ear for irony, Max Beerbohm delivers us in More twenty further reasons to call him the finest, and funniest, essayist of his era.