[Patricia]

This is Max Beerbohm’s only novel, originally published in 1911. It is a good-humoured satire on Oxford college life.

However, one is tempted to see the futile sacrifice for a trivial cause which forms the conclusion of the book as a prefiguring of the waste of life in the forthcoming war. But this is speculation.

From Wikipedia:

“Zuleika Dobson is a stunningly attractive young woman, a true femme fatale, who is a conjurer by profession. Zuleika manages to gain entrance to the privileged, all-male domain of Oxford University when she visits her grandfather, the Warden of Judas College (based on Merton College, Oxford, Beerbohm's alma mater). There she entices the undergraduates with her manner and looks; however, as she feels that she cannot love anyone unless he is impervious to her charms, she rejects her suitors…”

This leads to a dramatic ending.