Item 62: Letter to Bohun Lynch (June 18, 1921)

Beerbohm responded in a panic—though, as always, in a tone of mock panic, reflecting his habitual style of comic irony—to the news that he was the subject of a forthcoming book by Bohun Lynch (1884–1928). Lynch was, like Beerbohm, a fiction writer and an artist specializing in celebrity caricature. His Max Beerbohm in Perspective (1921) analyzed Beerbohm’s visual works and writings, and his conclusions about the latter were not unreservedly positive. While praising Beerbohm as “the personification of the civilized world[,]” Lynch harshly criticized Beerbohm’s novel, Zuleika Dobson, declaring it a failure. In his letter to Lynch, Beerbohm had insisted, “My gifts are small,” perhaps hoping to head off with a display of diffidence and modesty just such negative judgments.