Ariel Percy Bysshe Shelley

André Maurois was born in 1885 in Normandy, France. He was the son of Ernest Herzog a jewish textile manufacturer who had fled Alsace after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to take refuge in Elbeuf, Normandy. During World War I, he served as an interpreter.  His first novel, The Silence of Colonel Bramble met immediate  success in both France and England.  He wrote the brilliant essay Kipling and his works from a French point of view. He is best known for his well documented biographies of Chateubriand, Disraeli, George Sand and others.