The Atlantic Bookshelf: A Guide to Good Books

BORN in Normandy, where his family have been manufacturers for over a century, André Maurois served his apprenticeship in textiles, and not until his early thirties, when he was commissioned an interpreter attached to the 9th Scottish Division, did his writing get the best of his looms. With Les Silences du Colonel Bramble (1918) he began his exploration of the English character which has continued to this day. Of the nineteen books bearing his signature the chief are biographies,—Ariel: the Life of Shelley, Disraeli, Byron, — the others novels, essays, and critical studies.

In 1930, M. Maurois came to America to fill the Dyne Chair of French Literature at Princeton. One wonders if he has since been tempted to analyze the American character.