It's so cool that Max Beerbohm (1872) & Jorge Luis Borges (1899) share a birthday. They have so much in common. Beerbohm is as profound as Borges; Borges is as funny as Beerbohm.
Photos:
Cecil Beaton, 1927 @NPGLondon
Ulf Andersen, Paris, 1979
Photos:
Cecil Beaton, 1927 @NPGLondon
Ulf Andersen, Paris, 1979
Max Beerbohm by William Newzam Prior Nicholson
oil on canvas, 1905
@NPGLondon
"In his prose, as in his drawings, Max Beerbohm hardly knew failure; time and again the nail is delicately but sharply hit on the head, the point firmly driven home."
- John Mortimer
oil on canvas, 1905
@NPGLondon
"In his prose, as in his drawings, Max Beerbohm hardly knew failure; time and again the nail is delicately but sharply hit on the head, the point firmly driven home."
- John Mortimer
Jorge Luis Borges by Ferdinando Scianna, 1984
"His fables are written from a height of intelligence less rare in philosophy & physics than in fiction. Furthermore, he is, at least for anyone whose taste runs to puzzles or pure speculation, delightfully entertaining"
- John Updike
"His fables are written from a height of intelligence less rare in philosophy & physics than in fiction. Furthermore, he is, at least for anyone whose taste runs to puzzles or pure speculation, delightfully entertaining"
- John Updike
Max Beerbohm
Walt Whitman, Inciting the Bird of Freedom to Soar
Illustration from The Poets' Corner, 1904
Walt Whitman, Inciting the Bird of Freedom to Soar
Illustration from The Poets' Corner, 1904
Life before Twitter.
From Richard Burgin's 1967 interview with Jorge Luis Borges
From Richard Burgin's 1967 interview with Jorge Luis Borges
Happy birthday to Max Beerbohm 🎂
Zuleika Dobson is one of my favourite books.
S.J. Perelman once accompanied Elizabeth Taylor to Oxford, & said the undergraduates reacted just like the ones in Max Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson.
The wonderful cover painting is by Sir Osbert Lancaster
Zuleika Dobson is one of my favourite books.
S.J. Perelman once accompanied Elizabeth Taylor to Oxford, & said the undergraduates reacted just like the ones in Max Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson.
The wonderful cover painting is by Sir Osbert Lancaster
Unknown to me
the closed encyclopedia, the sweet play
In volumes I can do no more than hold,
the tiny soaring birds, the moons of gold.
Others have the world, for better or worse;
I have this half-dark, and the toil of verse.
- Jorge Luis Borges
📷 Eduardo Comesana, 1969
the closed encyclopedia, the sweet play
In volumes I can do no more than hold,
the tiny soaring birds, the moons of gold.
Others have the world, for better or worse;
I have this half-dark, and the toil of verse.
- Jorge Luis Borges
📷 Eduardo Comesana, 1969
Max Beerbohm by Charles Shannon, 1896
"The younger generation is knocking at the door, and as I open it there steps sprightly in the incomparable Max."
- George Bernard Shaw
But Max quoted Oscar Wilde on GBS: "He hadn't an enemy in the world and none of his friends liked him."
"The younger generation is knocking at the door, and as I open it there steps sprightly in the incomparable Max."
- George Bernard Shaw
But Max quoted Oscar Wilde on GBS: "He hadn't an enemy in the world and none of his friends liked him."
"One way or another, Borges constantly takes issue with reality, or what the common-sense consensus calls reality, such as our unprovable, ineradicable beliefs in causality, or in the relevance of what we perceive to what exists, or in our own being"
- Naomi Bliven
📷 Diane Arbus
- Naomi Bliven
📷 Diane Arbus
Max Beerbohm by Kay Bell Reynal, 1955
"He knew his place in the grand scheme of literature, and made no boastful claims for himself and his work, yet he remains not only delightful company but a figure of moral weight as well."
- John Banville
"He knew his place in the grand scheme of literature, and made no boastful claims for himself and his work, yet he remains not only delightful company but a figure of moral weight as well."
- John Banville
"I think that Mark Twain was one of the really great writers, but I think he was rather unaware of the fact. But perhaps in order to write a really great book, you *must* be rather unaware of the fact."
- Jorge Luis Borges
📷 Daniel Mordzinski
- Jorge Luis Borges
📷 Daniel Mordzinski
A wonderful story about Max Beerbohm & Henry James.
Rebecca West said of Max's BBC talks, "I felt that I was listening to the voice of the last civilized man on earth. Max's broadcasts justify the entire invention of broadcasting."
Rebecca West said of Max's BBC talks, "I felt that I was listening to the voice of the last civilized man on earth. Max's broadcasts justify the entire invention of broadcasting."
Interviewer:
Don't you think it looks pensive?
Borges:
Perhaps. But so dark? So heavy? The brow... oh, well.
📷 The Gilda Kuhlman photo was also used on the front cover of A Personal Anthology from Grove, 1967
Don't you think it looks pensive?
Borges:
Perhaps. But so dark? So heavy? The brow... oh, well.
📷 The Gilda Kuhlman photo was also used on the front cover of A Personal Anthology from Grove, 1967
Today we're celebrating the birthday of Max Beerbohm 🎂
📷 With Siegfried Sassoon & Florence, Lady Beerbohm
@NPGLondon
"To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine."
📷 With Siegfried Sassoon & Florence, Lady Beerbohm
@NPGLondon
"To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine."
Today we're celebrating the birthday of Jorge Luis Borges 🎂
📷 Ferdinando Scianna, Palermo, 1984
"Borges's universalism is a deeply felt imaginative strategy, a maneuver to be in touch with the great winds that blow from the heart of things."
- George Steiner
📷 Ferdinando Scianna, Palermo, 1984
"Borges's universalism is a deeply felt imaginative strategy, a maneuver to be in touch with the great winds that blow from the heart of things."
- George Steiner
"He parodied the sedulousness of his immediate ancestors by advocating, covertly, a cult of laziness."
- Roger Lewis on Max Beerbohm
Self-portrait, water-colour, 1923
@NPGLondon
Meant to post this on #NationalLazyDay, but I couldn't be bothered to look up when it was.
- Roger Lewis on Max Beerbohm
Self-portrait, water-colour, 1923
@NPGLondon
Meant to post this on #NationalLazyDay, but I couldn't be bothered to look up when it was.
Jorge Luis Borges by Sophie Bassouls, 1977
"To me, reading has been a way of living. I think the only possible fate for me was a literary life. I can't think of myself in a bookless world. I need books. They mean everything to me."
"To me, reading has been a way of living. I think the only possible fate for me was a literary life. I can't think of myself in a bookless world. I need books. They mean everything to me."
Max Beerbohm
"Mr William Bell Scott Wondering What It is Those Fellows Seem to See in Gabriel"
@Tate, 1916
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Walter Pater & William Morris, plus Rossetti's wombat & kangaroo (really!)
"Mr William Bell Scott Wondering What It is Those Fellows Seem to See in Gabriel"
@Tate, 1916
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Walter Pater & William Morris, plus Rossetti's wombat & kangaroo (really!)
"Somehow the central fact of my life has been the existence of words and the possibility of weaving those words into poetry."
- Jorge Luis Borges, "The Poet's Creed"
📷 Ferdinando Scianna
Palermo, Sicily, 1984
- Jorge Luis Borges, "The Poet's Creed"
📷 Ferdinando Scianna
Palermo, Sicily, 1984
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
