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).

Maurois, André

orig. Émile Herzog

(born July 26, 1885, Elbeuf, France—died Oct. 9, 1967, Paris) French writer. An officer in the British army during World War I, Maurois had his first literary success with The Silences of Colonel Bramble (1918), a humorous commentary on warfare and the British character. His novels include Bernard Quesnay (1926) and Whatever Gods May Be (1928). He is best known for biographies with the narrative interest of novels; his subjects included Percy B. Shelley, Lord Byron, Victor Hugo, and Marcel Proust.