André Maurois

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Maurois, André (pseud. of Émile Herzog) (1885-1967). The foremost popular biographer in France in the 20th c., his subjects include Shelley (1923), Disraeli (1927), Byron (1930), Turgenev (1931), Chateaubriand (1938), Proust (1949), George Sand (1952), Victor Hugo (1954), Madame de Lafayette (1961), and Balzac (1965). The popularity of his biographies undoubtedly owes much to the semifictional techniques of character-analysis and narration on which they are based. A devoted anglophile, Maurois also produced an Histoire d'Angleterre (1937), as well as two amusing novels which draw upon his experience with British troops during World War I and which established his literary reputation: Les Silences du colonel Bramble (1918) and its sequel, Les Discours du docteur O'Grady (1922).

[Nicholas Hewitt]

Maurois, André (äNdrā' mōrwä'), 1885-1967, French biographer, novelist, and essayist. His name was originally Émile Herzog. His first work, The Silence of Colonel Bramble (1918, tr. 1920), describing British military life, was highly successful. Ariel (1923, tr. 1924), a life of Shelley, was followed by lives of Byron, Disraeli, Chateaubriand, Washington, George Sand, Victor Hugo, and others. Other works include A History of England (1937, tr. rev. ed. 1958), Tragedy in France (1940, tr. 1940), From My Journal (1946, tr. 1948), and Proust (1949, tr. 1950). Maurois wrote discerningly on the art of biography as well as on writing and on living.

Bibliography

See his memoirs (2 vol., tr. 1942 and 1970).

(môr-wä') , André (Pen name of Émile Herzog.) 1885-1967.

French writer noted for his essays, biographies, and novels, including Atmosphere of Love (1929) and The Family Circle (1932).

Quotes:

"Old age is far more than white hair, wrinkles, the feeling that it is too late and the game finished, that the stage belongs to the rising generations. The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul."

"Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy man has no time to form."

"If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain."

"A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection."

"The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author's life."

"Men and women are not born inconstant: they are made so by their early amorous experiences."

See more famous quotes by Andre Maurois