Zuleika Dobson is the granddaughter of the Warden of Judas College, Oxford. She is also a famed prestidigitator, with a somewhat lively reputation and questionable skill! However, she is one thing absolutely and without question: a beauty. Youths are reputed to have died for love of her.
When she arrives in Oxford on a visit to her grandfather, the many young men of the colleges sit up and take notice. Something about her inspires their unthinking devotion. But these slaves bore Zuleika; she needs someone to love whom she can respect. As she and her grandfather drive to Judas, the young, handsome, lordly and cool-tempered Duke of Dorset rides by their carriage and pays her no attention whatever. Zuleika is thrilled and delighted by his indifference - has she finally found her man?
But it is not to be. Later, in a private tête-à-tête, Dorset reveals that he too is overwhelmed. In bitter disappointment, her hopes dashed, Zuleika rejects him. He is so overcome that he vows to kill himself in her name, and encourage any young men of the city who feel the same to follow his example.
The duke plans this apotheosis to occur down on the river - it is Eights Week. As the fated time approaches, Zuleika begins quietly to enjoy the disturbance she is creating; many, many young men have vowed to join the mass suicide. Through twists and reverses, their egos and amour propre clashing, Dorset and Zuleika approach the moment of truth. Will he carry out his extraordinary plan? How many smitten young fellows will join him? In the end, Oxford undergoes a day that will never be forgotten.
Max Beerbohm wrote fiction very rarely. Zuleika Dobson, first published in 1911, his only full-length novel, is an erudite comic masterpiece, superlatively satirising the delusions of romantic love in this legend of a literal femme fatale.
