Anatole France
Personal Information
Description
Anatole France was born François-Anatole Thibault in Paris, the son of a bookseller. His father's bookstore, Librairie France, specialized in books and papers on the French Revolution and was frequented by many notable writers and scholars of the day. Anatole France studied at the Collège Stanislas and went to work with his father after his graduation. After several years he became a cataloguer at Bacheline-Deflorenne and at Lemerre. He began his career as a poet and a journalist. In 1876 he was appointed a librarian for the French Senate. He became famous with the novel Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard (1881), which won a prize from the French Academy. He was elected to the Académie française in 1896. In the 1920s, his writings were put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Prohibited Books Index) of the Roman Catholic Church. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921.
Books
Famous Modern Ghost Stories
The Willows / Algernon Blackwood The Shadows on the Wall / Mary E. Wilkins Freeman The Messenger / Robert W. Chambers Lazarus / Leonid Andreyev The Beast with Five Fingers / W.f. Harvey The Mass of Shadows / Anatole France What Was It? / Fitz James O'brien The Middle Toe of the Right Foot / Ambrose Bierce The Shell of Sense / Olivia Howard Dunbar The Woman At Seven Brothers / Wilbur Daniel Steele At the Gate / Myla Jo Closser Ligeia / Edgar Allan Poe The Haunted Orchard / Richard le Gallienne The Bowmen / Arthur Machen A Ghost / Guy de Maupassant
Œuvres
Essays of the masters
Crainquebille, Putois, Riquet
La majeste de la justice reside tout entiere dans chaque sentence rendue par le juge au nom du peuple souverain. Jerome Crainquebille, marchand ambulant, connut combien la loi est auguste, quand il fut traduit en police correctionnelle pour outrage a un agent de la force publique. Ayant pris place, dans la salle magnifique et sombre, sur le banc des accuses, il vit les juges, les greffiers, les avocats en robe, l'huissier portant la chaine, les gendarmes et, derriere une cloison, les tetes nues des spectateurs silencieux.
The Man who Married a Dumb Wife: A Comedy in Two Acts
Book digitized by Google from the library of the University of Michigan and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.
Le livre de mon ami: le livre de Pierre
Book digitized by Google from the library of the University of California and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.
Thaïs
Paphnuce, an ascetic hermit of the Egyptian desert, journeys to Alexandria to find Thais, the libertine beauty whom he knew as a youth. Masquerading as a dandy, he is able to speak with her about eternity; surprisingly he succeeds in converting her to Christianity. Yet on their return to the desert he becomes fascinated with her former life. She enters a convent to repent of her sins. He cannot forget the pull of her famous beauty, and becomes confused about the values of life. Later, as she is dying and can only see heaven opening before her, he comes to her side and tells her that her faith is an illusion, and that he loves her.
Monsieur Bergeret a Paris
M. Bergeret etait a table et prenait son repas modique du soir; Riquet etait couche a ses pieds sur un coussin de tapisserie. Riquet avait l'ame religieuse et rendait a l'homme des honneurs divins. Il tenait son maitre pour tres bon et tres grand. Mais c'est principalement quand il le voyait a table qu'il concevait la grandeur et la bonte souveraines de M. Bergeret. Si toutes les choses de la nourriture lui etaient sensibles et precieuses, les choses de la nourriture humaine lui etaient augustes.
L' ile des pingouins
"Entraîné par la malice du Diable, le saint homme Maël aborde une île des mers hyperboréennes où l'a conduit une tempête de trente jours. Trompé, sur le rivage, par sa mauvaise vue, le vieil apôtre baptise des pingouins qu'il prend pour des hommes."--Cover.