Maurois, André (1885–1967)

French writer and biographer. During World War I he was attached to the British Army as a liaison officer, and the essays in Les Silences du Colonel Bramble (1918) and Les Discours du Docteur O'Grady (1920) offer humorously sympathetic observations on the British character. His other works include the semi-autobiographical Bernard Quesnay (1926) and a large number of distinguished biographies intended to read as novels, such as Ariel, ou la vie de Shelley (1923), La Vie de Disraëli (1927), Byron (1930), Voltaire (1932), Dickens (1934), Lélia, ou la vie de George Sand (1952), Olympia, ou la vie de Victor Hugo (1953), and Les Trois Dumas (1957).

Other works include Ni ange, ni bête 1919, Meipe, ou la délivrance 1926, Etudes anglaises 1927, Les Derniers Jours de Pompei 1928 (a study of Bulwer-Lytton and his wife), Aspects de la biographie 1928, Marshal Lyautey 1931, Chateaubriand 1938, Tragedy in France 1940, Seven Faces of Love 1948, and Les Roses de septembre 1956 (a novel).