Daudet

Daudet, Alphonse, a noted French writer, born at Nimes in 1840. He was educated in the Lycee at Lyons, and for a time was an under master. At the age of 17 he came to Paris with his brother Ernest, and the privations he underwent have been described in his autobiographical sketches. He gained employment under the Duke of Morny, who supplied him with the original of the "Duc de Moxa" in Le Nabab. His exquisite Lettres de Mon Moulin, with their vigorous delineation of Southern French life, are well known in England, as is his Fromont Jeune et Risler Aine. But his popularity among us chiefly rests upon his amusing Tartarin de Tarascon and Tartarin sur les Alpes. A further set of Tartarin's adventures does not arouse the same interest. The Tarasconese were said to be furious against him. His Sapho is a powerful book, hardly, perhaps, suitable to general English taste. In 1887 he published Trente Ans de Paris, in 1888 L'Immortel, a satire upon the Academy, in 1889 Souvenirs d'un Homme de Lettres, and in 1892 Rose et Ninette. Others of his works are Les Rois en Exil, Jack, and Numa Roumestan.