Life

During World War I he joined the French army and served as an interpreter and later a liaison officer to the British army. His first novel, Les silences du colonel Bramble, was a witty but socially realistic account of that experience. It was an immediate success in France. It was translated and also became popular in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries as The Silence of Colonel Bramble. Many of his other works have also been translated into English, as they often dealt with British figures or topics, such as his biographies of Disraeli, Byron, and Shelley.

In 1938 Maurois was elected to the prestigious Académie française.

When World War II broke out, he was appointed the French Official Observer attached to the British General Headquarters. In his official capacity he accompanied the British Army to Belgium. He personally knew the leaders of the French Government, and on June 10, 1940, he was sent on a mission to London. The Armistice put an end to that mission. Maurois was demobilized and traveled from England to Canada. He wrote of these experiences in his book, Tragedy in France.

During World War II he served in the French army and the Free French Forces.

"André Maurois" was a pen name that became his legal name in 1947.

He died in 1967 after a long career as an author of novels, biographies, histories, and children’s books. He is buried in the Neuilly-sur-Seine community cemetery near Paris.

Bibliography

• Climats
• Lelia, ou la vie de George Sand (Lelia, or the life of George Sand)
• Histoire d'Angleterre (History of England)
• Aspects of Biography (1929)
• Fattypuffs and Thinifers (1930)
• The Next Chapter: The War Against the Moon (1930)
• Ariel
• Byron (first published in hardback by Cape in 1930, and since translated from French into English by Hamish Miles and published in paperback by Constable in 1984)
• Captains and Kings
• Disraeli
• Mape
• Lyautey
• The Silence of Colonel Bramble
• General Bramble
• Dickens
• Prophets and Poets
• The Thought Reading Machine
• Ricochets
• The Miracle of England
• Chateaubriand
• The Art of Living
• Tragedy in France
• I Remember, I Remember
• The Miracle of America
• Les Origines de la Guerre de 1939
• Woman Without Love
• My American Journal
• Olympio: The Turbulent Life of Victor Hugo
• To an Unknown Lady
• Prometheus: The Life of Balzac
• The Life of Sir Alexander Fleming: Discoverer of Penicillin
• Adrienne, ou, La vie de Mme de La Fayette
• Ariel the Life of Shelley
• The World of Marcel Proust
• Titans: A Three-Generation Biography of the Dumas

References

Notes

General references

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External links

• Science Fiction works
• Amazon biography