O‘Rell, Max, 1848-1903

O‘Rell, Max (1848–1903) was a writer about whose life little is publicly documented; his nationality, education, and career remain unclear, and nine of his works are held in the collection. Judging from those works, he was long occupied with British and American society and with cultural differences between Britain and France, and he depicted cross-cultural observation in a light, satirical tone. A Frenchman in America records American manners and society through a visitor‘s eyes, while Jonathan and His Continent rambles through American social customs. John Bull, Junior and English Pharisees, French Crocodiles and Other Anglo-French Typical Characters focus on national stereotypes and linguistic misunderstandings between the two countries, and Woman and Artist and John Bull’s Womankind touch on gender and art. His writing consists mainly of essays and satirical sketches, broad in subject and humorous in tone, and offers some record of nineteenth-century Anglo-American manners and of how the British and French viewed each other.