André Maurois (born Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog; 1885 - 1967) was a French writer who had a long career as an author of novels, biographies, histories, children's books and science fiction stories. As a recognition of his work, Maurois was appointed a member of the French Academy in 1938. His Maurois pseudonym became his legal name in 1947. During World War I he joined the French army and served as an interpreter and later a liaison officer with the British army. Maurois's first wife was Jeanne-Marie Wanda de Szymkiewicz, a young Polish-Russian aristocrat who had studied at Oxford University. He became widowed in 1924. Maurois's second wife was Simone de Caillavet, the granddaughter of Anatole France's mistress Léontine Arman de Caillavet. After Germany occupied France the couple moved to the United States to help with propaganda work against the Nazis. Later in World War II he served in the French army and the Free French Forces.

André Maurois is best known for biographies that maintain the narrative interest of novels. This book is a Russian translaiton of his biographical novel
Disraeli (published in 1927).