Anatole France
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{{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; born {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} {{#invoke:IPA|main}}; 16 April 1844 – 12 October 1924) was a French poet, journalist, and novelist with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters.<ref name=NYT10131924>"Anatole France, Great Author, Dies", The New York Times, October 13, 1924, p.1</ref> He was a member of the Académie Française, and won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
France is also widely believed to be the model for narrator Marcel's literary idol Bergotte in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Early years
The son of a bookseller, France, a bibliophile,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> spent most of his life around books. His father's bookstore specialized in books and papers on the French Revolution and was frequented by many writers and scholars. France studied at the Collège Stanislas, a private Catholic school, and after graduation he helped his father by working in his bookstore.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After several years, he secured the position of cataloguer at Bacheline-Deflorenne and at Lemerre. In 1876, he was appointed librarian for the French Senate.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Literary career
France began his literary career as a poet and a journalist. In 1869, Le Parnasse contemporain published one of his poems, "{{#invoke:Lang|lang}}". In 1875, he sat on the committee in charge of the third Parnasse contemporain compilation. As a journalist, from 1867, he wrote many articles and notices. He became known with the novel {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1881).<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Its protagonist, skeptical old scholar Sylvester Bonnard, embodied France's own personality. The novel was praised for its elegant prose and won him a prize from the Académie Française.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web
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In {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1893) France ridiculed belief in the occult, and in {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1893), France captured the atmosphere of the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. He was elected to the Académie Française in 1896.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
France took a part in the Dreyfus affair. He signed Émile Zola's manifesto supporting Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer who had been falsely convicted of espionage.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> France wrote about the affair in his 1901 novel Monsieur Bergeret.
France's later works include Penguin Island ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, 1908) which satirizes human nature by depicting the transformation of penguins into humans – after the birds have been baptized by mistake by the almost-blind Abbot Mael. It is a satirical history of France, starting in medieval times, going on to the author's own time with special attention to the Dreyfus affair and concluding with a dystopian future. The Gods Are Athirst ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, 1912) is a novel, set in Paris during the French Revolution, about a true-believing follower of Maximilien Robespierre and his contribution to the bloody events of the Reign of Terror of 1793–94. It is a wake-up call against political and ideological fanaticism and explores various other philosophical approaches to the events of the time. The Revolt of the Angels ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, 1914) is often considered France's most profound and ironic novel. Loosely based on the Christian understanding of the War in Heaven, it tells the story of Arcade, the guardian angel of Maurice d'Esparvieu. Bored because Bishop d'Esparvieu is sinless, Arcade begins reading the bishop's books on theology and becomes an atheist. He moves to Paris, meets a woman, falls in love, and loses his virginity causing his wings to fall off, joins the revolutionary movement of fallen angels, and meets the Devil, who realizes that if he overthrew God, he would become just like God. Arcade realizes that replacing God with another is meaningless unless "in ourselves and in ourselves alone we attack and destroy Ialdabaoth." "Ialdabaoth", according to France, is God's secret name and means "the child who wanders".
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921. He died on 13 October 1924<ref name=NYT10131924/> and is buried in the Neuilly-sur-Seine Old Communal Cemetery near Paris.
On 31 May 1922, France's entire works were put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books") of the Catholic Church.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He regarded this as a "distinction".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> This Index was abolished in 1966.
Personal life
In 1877, France married Valérie Guérin de Sauville, a granddaughter of Jean-Urbain Guérin, a miniaturist who painted Louis XVI.<ref name="Leduc2004">Template:Cite book</ref> Their daughter Suzanne was born in 1881 (and died in 1918).
France's relations with women were always turbulent, and in 1888 he began a relationship with Madame Arman de Caillavet, who conducted a celebrated literary salon of the Third Republic. The affair lasted until shortly before her death in 1910.<ref name="Leduc2004"/>
After his divorce, in 1893, France had many liaisons, notably with an American, Laura Gagey, who committed suicide in 1911 after he abandoned her.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In 1920, France married for the second time, his housekeeper Emma Laprévotte.<ref name="Lahy-Hollebecque">Template:Cite book</ref>
France had socialist sympathies and was an outspoken supporter of the 1917 Russian Revolution. In 1920, he gave his support to the newly founded French Communist Party.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> In his book The Red Lily, France famously wrote, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Reputation
The English writer George Orwell defended France and declared that his work remained very readable, and that "it is unquestionable that he was attacked partly from political motives".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Works
Poetry
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, poem published in 1867 in the Gazette rimée.
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1873)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Bride of Corinth) (1876)
Prose fiction
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Jocasta and the Famished Cat) (1879)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard) (1881)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Aspirations of Jean Servien) (1882)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Honey-Bee) (1883)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1889)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1890)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Mother of Pearl) (1892)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque) (1892)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Our Children: Scenes from the Country and the Town) (1886) illustrated by Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Opinions of Jerome Coignard) (1893)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Red Lily) (1894)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Well of Saint Clare) (1895)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (A Chronicle of Our Own Times)
- 1: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Elm-Tree on the Mall) (1897)
- 2: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Wicker-Work Woman) (1897)
- 3: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Amethyst Ring) (1899)
- 4: {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Monsieur Bergeret in Paris) (1901)
- Clio (1900)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (A Mummer's Tale) (1903)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The White Stone) (1905)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1901)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Penguin Island) (1908)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Merrie Tales of Jacques Tournebroche) (1908)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Seven Wives of Bluebeard and Other Marvelous Tales) (1909)
- Bee The Princess of the Dwarfs (1912)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Gods Are Athirst) (1912)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Revolt of the Angels) (1914)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1920) illustrated by Fernand Siméon
Memoirs
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (My Friend's Book) (1885)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1899)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Little Pierre) (1918)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Bloom of Life) (1922)
Plays
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1898)
- Crainquebille (1903)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Man Who Married A Dumb Wife) (1908)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Wicker Woman) (1928)
Historical biography
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Life of Joan of Arc) (1908)
Literary criticism
- Alfred de Vigny (1869)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1888)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Latin Genius) (1909)
Social criticism
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Garden of Epicurus) (1895)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1902)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1904)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1906)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1915)
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, in four volumes, (1949, 1953, 1964, 1973)
References
External links
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- List of Works
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- "Anatole France, Nobel Prize Winner" by Herbert S. Gorman, The New York Times, 20 November 1921
- Correspondence with architect Jean-Paul Oury at Syracuse University
- {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}
- Anatole France, his work in audio version Template:Webarchive File:Speaker Icon.svg Template:In lang
Template:Anatole France Template:Académie française Seat 38 Template:Nobel Prize in Literature Template:Thaïs Template:1921 Nobel Prize winners Template:Authority control
- Pages with broken file links
- 1844 births
- 1924 deaths
- Writers from Paris
- French bibliophiles
- Collège Stanislas de Paris alumni
- French fantasy writers
- French Nobel laureates
- 19th-century French poets
- French satirists
- French satirical novelists
- Members of the Académie Française
- Nobel laureates in Literature
- Dreyfusards
- 19th-century French novelists
- 20th-century French novelists
- French socialists
- French male poets
- French male novelists
- 19th-century French male writers
- French historical novelists
- Burials at Neuilly-sur-Seine community cemetery
- 19th-century pseudonymous writers
- 20th-century pseudonymous writers