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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Du Maurier Biography DU MAURIER, George Louis Palmella Busson (1834–96). An English illustrator and novelist, born in Paris. On his father's side he was of French descent; his mother was English. His boyhood was passed in London, Boulogne, and Paris, and at the age of 17 he took up the study of chemistry in University College, London. On the death of his father (1856) Du Maurier adopted art as his profession, studying in Paris under Gleyre and in Antwerp under De Kaiser and Van Lerius. In 1859, while drawing in the studio, he suddenly lost the sight of one eye, and during the rest of his life worked under the menace of total blindness. Returning to London, he began drawing for Once a Week, Punch, and the Cornhill Magazine, and on the death of Leech (1864) he became permanently attached to Punch, to whose pages he contributed those examples of social satiric art now so well known. For his drawings he himself composed the clever legends. He also illustrated Thackeray's Henry Esmond and Ballads, and works by Henry James, Thomas Hardy, George Meredith, Mrs. Gaskell, and others. To Harper's Magazine he contributed a series of drawings and two novels—Peter Ibbetson (1891) and Trilby (1894). The former, a fanciful romance of dream life, was widely read—chiefly, it would appear, through interest in the autobiographic record of the author's life at Passy. The latter, whose scene is the Quartier Latin, met with phenomenal success and was dramatized in both England and America. Whatever may be thought of the melodramatic presence of Svengali, the study of the artist trio, occupying the earlier portion of the story, is generally regarded as a genuine achievement. Subsequently to Du Maurier's death a third novel, The Martian, appeared in Harper's (1896–97). He was also a skillful writer of light verse, specimens of which appeared in Punch and dispersed through his books. But his reputation will chiefly rest upon that illustrative work for Punch through which he smilingly assailed the snobbish and the mean in the fashionable and artistic world, and which, by its copiousness of detail, forms a valuable historical storehouse for the future student of English manners and customs of his period. His drawings possess much grace, charm, and finish, and his peculiar type of woman became known everywhere. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. VII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 319-320. |