Maurois, André, << maw RWAH, ahn DRAY >> (1885-1967), was the pen name of Émile Herzog, a French novelist and biographer. Maurois tried to attain in his life and writings the spirit of the French writer Michel de Montaigne—a skeptical detachment from life, mixed with humor. These qualities appear in his best works.
Maurois’s place in literature probably rests with his biographies of English and French authors. His works include the lives of Percy Shelley (Ariel, 1923), Benjamin Disraeli (Disraeli: A Picture of the Victorian Age, 1927), Lord Byron (Don Juan, 1930), George Sand (Lelia, 1952), Victor Hugo (Olympio, 1954), and three generations of Alexandre Dumas’s family (The Titans, 1957).
Maurois was born on July 26, 1885, in Elbeuf. During World War I, he served as a French liaison officer with the British Army. His first works were two humorous novels based on his war experiences, The Silence of Colonel Bramble (1919) and Les Discours du Docteur O’Grady (The Return of Dr. O’Grady, 1922). Climats (Whatever Gods May Be, 1928) established Maurois as a skillful novelist with an elegant style. He also wrote popular histories of France, England, and the United States. Maurois was elected to the French Academy in 1938. He died on Oct. 9, 1967. Maurois’s Memoirs: 1885-1967 was published in 1970.
