English Society

By George Du Maurier

"English Society" is a comic book by the prominent British author and cartoonist George du Maurier, who was an author for Punch and other humor journals. The book consists of his wonderful cartons, each supplied with a humorous text and exposing some side of British social manners. The subtle sense of humor and sharp critical remarks make this book a pleasure to read and view.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Dec 20, 2019
• ISBN: 4064066141141

George Du Maurier

George du Maurier (1834-1896) was a Franco-British cartoonist, novelist, and short story writer. Born in Paris, du Maurier was raised in an aristocratic family whose fortunes had dwindled following his paternal grandfather’s implication in a 1789 financial scandal. His mother, Ellen Clarke, was the daughter of courtesan Mary Anne Clarke, the former mistress of Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany. Educated in Paris at the art studio of Charles Gleyre, du Maurier moved to Antwerp and Düsseldorf—where he sought help for an ailment in his left eye—before settling in London in 1851. There, he married Emma Wightwick, with whom he would raise five children, some of whom went on to successful careers in the arts. In 1865, du Maurier found work as a cartoonist for Punch magazine, where he gained a reputation as a leading satirist for cartoons poking fun at Victorian society and the burgeoning middle class. In addition to his black and white drawings for Punch, du Maurier produced illustrations for such periodicals as Harper’s, The Graphic, and The Cornhill Magazine. As his eyesight failed, du Maurier turned increasingly to fiction, writing the play Peter Ibbetson (1891) and the popular gothic horror novel Trilby (1894), both of which have been adapted for theater and film.

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George Du Maurier

English Society

Published by Good Press, 2022

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EAN 4064066141141

Table of Contents

I.

II.

III.

ENGLISH SOCIETY

BOOKS WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED

GEORGE DU MAURIER

I.

Table of Contents

It was my good fortune to have the courage to write to Du Maurier when Trilby was only half printed, and to tell him how much I liked the gay, sad story. In every way it was well that I did not wait for the end, for the last third of it seemed to me so altogether forced in its conclusions that I could not have offered my praises with a whole heart, nor he accepted them with any, if the disgust with its preposterous popularity, which he so frankly, so humorously expressed, had then begun in him. But the liking which its readers felt had not yet become loathsome to the author, and he wrote me back a charming note, promising me the mystery, and enough of it, which I had hoped for, because of my pleasure in the true-dreaming in Peter Ibbetson; and speaking briefly, most modestly and fitly, of his commencing novelist at sixty, and his relative misgivings and surprises.

It was indeed one of the most extraordinary things in the history of literature, and without a parallel, at least to my ignorance. He might have commenced and failed; that would have been infinitely less amazing than his most amazing success; but it was very amazing that he should have commenced at all. It is useless to say that he had commenced long before, and in the literary property of his work he had always been an author. This theory will not justify itself to any critical judgment; one might as well say, if some great novelist distinguished for his sense of color took to painting, that he had