Zuleika

Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, is highly intriguing. Sir Max Beerbohm wrote it in 1922. It is a story that will keep you glued to what will happen next, and at the same time build your vocabulary.

It takes place in Oxford University. Zuleika meets the “Duke” and they both instantly fall in love. The only problem is, they keep playing a cat and mouse game and the Duke decides that the only way he can show her his love is to die for her. This he plans. He is going to jump in the river during the annual boat races, and cheer (underwater) as the boat team passes overhead, but Zuleika stops him until later.

Soon, the word is out of the Duke’s plan, and many of the other young men of the college vow their love and thus decide their fate of dying for her love, as well. Zuleika is a conjurer by profession and thus amplifies the interest of many young men with her charms and tricks.

You’ll get to look into the romantic ideas of the 1920’s and be able to contrast them to those of today. It is designed in the form of an old book and is liberally illustrated.

Sir Max Beerbohm was an artist and did watercolor caricatures so many of the illustrations are watercolors mixed with “old photographs” of the times. In the story, Zuleika is followed around with many “snap shots”.