THE ILLUSTRATED ZULEIKA DOBSON
by Max Beerbohm, with an introduction by N. John Hall
Yale, £9.99, pp. 432, ISBN 0300097328
Max Beerbohm wrote a tale called The Happy Hypocrite, a reversal of his friend Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. It’s about a rake who puts on a saintly mask in order to win the love of a pure girl. When his mask is torn off, his former, dissolute face has become saintly underneath. The man has become his mask. One is reminded of this story while reading N. John Hall’s Max Beerbohm: A Kind of a Life because readers of N. John Hall’s previous work will find him revealed here in a completely new aspect. Which is the real N. John Hall? Happily and unhypocritically, the answer has to be: both.
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