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Lot Essay
Anatole France, pseudonym for Jacques Anatole Thibault (1844-1924), French writer, was the son of a Paris book dealer. He was educated at the Lycée Stanislaus, Paris and the École des Chartres. France's first great success was the novel Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard (1881), which received a prize from the Academie Français. Towards the end of the 1880s, France was producing works of historical fiction and, during this period, he became strongly opposed to the Naturalism of Emile Zola (1840-1902). In 1893, France published his most celebrated novel, La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedaque, a tale of life in Eighteenth Century France. Despite his objections to the institution, France was elected to the Academie Français in 1896; although he refused to attend sittings there. Between 1897 and 1901, France wrote four prose works under the title Histoire Contemporaine, a fictional account of the Belle Époque. During the 1890s, France became interested in socialism. In 1921, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. When France died in 1924, the highest-ranking members of the French Government attended his funeral.
His French was at once acknowledged to be finer than Renan's; as easy and as polished as the elder master; even more rhythmic and shot through with delicious irony.... and curiously perfect literary treatment.... Anatole France is the greatest of living Frenchmen - the greatest writer in Christendom today.
Vanity Fair, 'Men of the Day', No. 1184, 1909.
His French was at once acknowledged to be finer than Renan's; as easy and as polished as the elder master; even more rhythmic and shot through with delicious irony.... and curiously perfect literary treatment.... Anatole France is the greatest of living Frenchmen - the greatest writer in Christendom today.
Vanity Fair, 'Men of the Day', No. 1184, 1909.