George Du Maurier

Born in Paris in 1834, George du Maurier was a French-born British illustrator, cartoonist, and novelist whose work moved easily between humor, social observation, and storytelling. He is best remembered for his long association with Punch, where his cartoons captured the manners, anxieties, and small absurdities of Victorian society.

Before fiction made him famous, du Maurier had already built a major reputation as an artist and satirist. Problems with his eyesight helped push him away from regular magazine work and toward novel writing later in life. That shift produced three novels, including Peter Ibbetson and Trilby.

Trilby, published in 1894, was his great popular triumph. Set partly in bohemian Paris, it helped fix the character of Svengali in the cultural imagination and kept du Maurier's name alive long after his death in 1896. He is also part of a remarkable literary family line as the grandfather of novelist Daphne du Maurier.