George du Maurier

George du Maurier (6 March 1834 – 8 October 1896) was a French-born British cartoonist and author. He was the father of J. M. Barrie's dear friend Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, and her sons inspired the creation of Peter Pan. He was also the father of Gerald du Maurier, the first actor to play Captain Hook. His other grandchildren included writers Angela and Daphne du Maurier.

He studied art in Paris, and moved to Antwerp, Belgium, where he lost vision in his left eye. He consulted an oculist in Düsseldorf, Germany, where he met Emma Wightwick. He followed her family to London, where they were married in 1863.

He became a member of the staff of the satirical magazine Punch in 1865, drawing two cartoons a week. His favorite targets were the affected manners of Victorian society, which he despised. His most enduringly famous cartoon is titled "True Humility". In it, a bishop addresses a curate (a very humble class of clergyman) whom he has condescended to invite to breakfast, noticing the rotten egg that the curate has been served, which the curate tries to praise. This was the origin of the expressions "good in parts" and "a curate's egg", both ironically describing something truly bad that is (supposedly) redeemed by its good parts. In an earlier (1884) cartoon, du Maurier had coined the phrase "bedside manner", which he satirized in contrast to actual medical skill. Another notable cartoon was of a videophone conversation in 1879, using a device he called "Edison's telephonoscope".

Owing to his deteriorating eyesight, du Maurier reduced his involvement with Punch in 1891 and settled in Hampstead, where he wrote and illustrated three novels. His first was entitled Peter Ibbetson, and was a modest success at the time, later being adapted to stage and screen, most notably in the 1935 film starring Gary Cooper. The third novel was a long, largely autobiographical work entitled The Martian, which was only published posthumously.

His most successful novel was the second, Trilby, published in 1894. It was part of the gothic horror revival during the fin de siecle (end of the century) and was hugely popular, outsold at the time only by Bram Stoker's Dracula. The story of the poor, tone-deaf artist's model Trilby O'Ferrall, transformed into a diva under the spell of the evil musical genius Svengali, created a sensation. Soap, songs, dances, toothpaste, and even the a city in Florida were all named for the heroine, and the variety of soft felt hat with an indented crown that was worn in the London stage dramatization of the novel, is known to this day as a trilby. The novel introduced the expression "in the altogether" as a euphemism for being totally naked. The plot inspired Gaston Leroux's 1910 potboiler Phantom of the Opera and the innumerable works derived from it. Although initially bemused by Trilby's success, du Maurier eventually came to despise the persistent attention given to it.

George du Maurier was a close friend of novelist Henry James; their relationship was fictionalised in David Lodge's Author, Author.

He died in 1896, and was interred in Saint John's Churchyard in Hampstead.