Zuleika Dobson is a highly accomplished and superbly written book whose spirit is farcical," said E. M. Forster. "It is a great work--the most consistent achievement of fantasy in our time . . .

so funny and charming, so iridescent yet so profound."

   Originally published in 1911, Max Beerbohm's sparklingly wicked satire concerns the unlikely events that occur when a femme fatale briefly enters the supremely privileged, all-male domain of Judas Col-

lege, Oxford. A conjurer by profession, Zuleika Dobson can only love a man who is impervious to her considerable charms: a circumstance that proves fatal, as any number of love-smitten suitors are driven to suicide by the damsel's rejection. Laced with memorable one-liners ("Death cancels all engagements," utters the first casualty) and inspired throughout by Beerbohm's rococo imagination, this lyrical evocation of Edwardian undergraduate life at Oxford has, according to Forster, "a beauty unattainable by serious literature."

   "I read Zuleika Dobson with pleasure," recalled Bertrand Russell. "It represents the Oxford that the two World Wars have destroyed with a charm that is not likely to be reproduced anywhere in the world for the next thousand years."

英国作家兼演员的贝波姆(Max Beerbohm)擅长模仿知名作家的风格，并且也是著名的讽刺画家。他可说是20世纪最具破坏性的模仿嘲弄者之一。

* * * 关于CAMP* * *

桑塔格(S. Sontag)在1964年的《“敢曝”札记》(“Notes on ‘Camp’”)中写道，“世界上的许多事物都还没有名称。许多事物即使有名称，也从来没有给人描述，其中之一便是那个在圈子里被称作为camp的感受;camp无疑是现代的，是一种并非完全老于世故的老于世故。”

敢曝这个“圈子内用语”到底从何而来有几种不同的说法，一种说法是它来自法语se camper，原意是“大胆展示自己”，另一种说法是它来自纽约市警察局使用的KAMP这个缩写，原意是Known as Male Prostitute(已入档的男妓)。华语界将camp译成“敢曝”看来是取第一种意思，是兼有音、意效果的翻译，故在此用之。〔注:Camp 一语有别种翻译法。例如，陈冠中主张按顾爱彬、李瑞华、程巍等的音译，把 camp译为“坎普”。但他也指出，“坎普”这词，给中文用者很大的困扰。创意的译法有田晓菲的“矫揉造作”、沈语冰的“好玩家”、董鼎山的“媚俗”(可能是借“坎普”与“刻奇”的近亲关系)、王德威的“假仙”(台湾用语，指行为上的假装)，但都只突显了“坎普”某些特性而最终未能达意。见陈冠中：《坎普·垃圾·刻奇——给受了过多人文教育的人》， 《万象》第二卷，第4期， 2004年.〕

camp一词最早出现在威尔(R. J. Ware)编撰的《维多利亚时期的过眼英语》((Passing English of the Victorian Era [1909])。二十世纪俚语词典中的camp意指“夸张强调的行为和举止，主要用于那些特别缺乏个人性格者，”它逐渐成为演艺圈、精英圈、时尚人士和娱乐行业圈内人士的俚语。

1920年代以后，精英文化圈中有人用camp来指称某些作家的文学风格，如，Oscar Wilde、Max Beerbohm、Ronald Firbank、Carl Van Vechten，他们的文学风格和写法都有唯美主义、贵族化冷峻、反讽、戏剧化的小题大作、戏仿、优美柔弱等特点。