French novelist, publicist and journalist
Edmond Francois Valentin About
(14 February 1828 – 16 January 1885) was a French novelist, publicist and journalist.
Biography
[
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]
About was born at
Dieuze
, in the
Moselle
departement
in the
Lorraine
region of France.
[1]
In 1848, he entered the
Ecole Normale
, taking second place in the annual competition for admission in which
Hippolyte Taine
came first. Among his college contemporaries, besides Taine, were
Francisque Sarcey
,
Challemel-Lacour
and
Prevost-Paradol
. Of them all, About was considered the most highly vitalized, exuberant, brilliant and "undisciplined".
[2]
It is said that one of his schoolmasters told him "You will never be more than a little
Voltaire
"
At the end of his college career, he joined the French school in
Athens
, but claimed that he had never intended to follow the professorial career for which the Ecole Normale was a preparation, and in 1853 he returned to France and devoted himself to literature and journalism.
[2]
Career
[
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]
He made his name as an entertaining anti-clerical writer. The satirical
Le Roi des montagnes
(1856; translated into English by
Mary Louise Booth
as
The King of the Mountains
,
[4]
and by Tom Taylor as
The Brigand and His Banker
, for a dramatized version)
[5]
is the best-known of his novels.
In Greece, About had noticed that there was a curious understanding between the brigands and police: brigandage was becoming almost a safe and respectable industry. About pushed this idea to invent the story of a brigand chief who converts his business into a registered
joint-stock company
.
About's commentary on modern Greece,
La Grece contemporaine
(1854), was an immediate success. But his
Tolla
(1855), the story of a young Parisian actress, gave rise to charges of drawing too freely on an earlier Italian novel,
Vittoria Savelli
(1841). This aroused prejudice against him, and he was the object of numerous attacks. The
Lettres d'un bon jeune homme
, written to the
Figaro
under the signature of "Valentin de Quevilly", provoked more animosities. During the next few years, he wrote novels, stories, a play (which failed), a book-pamphlet on the Roman question, many pamphlets on other subjects of the day, innumerable newspaper articles, some art criticisms, rejoinders to the attacks of his enemies, and popular manuals of political economy,
L'A B C du travailleur
(1868),
Le progres
(1864). His more serious novels include
Madelon
(1863),
L'Infame
(1867), the three that form the trilogy of the
Vieille Roche
(1866), and
Le roman d'un brave homme
(1880) ? a kind of counterblast to the view of the French workman presented in
Emile Zola
's
L'Assommoir
. He is best remembered as a
farceur
, for the books
Le nez d'un notaire
(1862);
Le roi des montagnes
(1856);
L'homme a l'oreille cassee
(1862);
Trente et quarante
(1858);
Le cas de M. Guerin
(1862; see
Georges Maurice de Guerin
).
[2]
He was initiated at the Saint-Jean de Jerusalem
Grand Orient de France
lodge in
Nancy
on 7 March 1862. He wrote several articles against Masonic side degrees, a point of view that was common among French leftwing freemasons.
[6]
About's attitude towards the empire was friendly but critical. He greeted the liberal ministry of
Emile Ollivier
at the beginning of 1870 with delight, and welcomed the
Franco-Prussian War
. But as a result of the war he lost his beloved home in
Alsace
, which he had purchased in 1858 out of the fruits of his earlier literary successes. With the fall of the empire, he became a
republican
, and threw himself into battle against conservative reactionaries. From 1872 to about 1877, his paper, the
XIX
e
Siecle
(
19th century
), became a power in the land.
[2]
His political career, however, failed to advance further.
On 23 January 1884, he was elected a member of the
Academie francaise
, but died at age 66 before taking his seat. His grave at the
Pere Lachaise Cemetery
in Paris includes a sculpture by
Gustave Crauck
.
Filmography
[
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]
- L'uomo dall'orecchio mozzato
, directed by
Ubaldo Maria Del Colle
(Italy, 1916, based on the novel
L'Homme a l'oreille cassee
)
- Per un figlio
, directed by
Mario Bonnard
(Italy, 1920, based on the novel
Germaine
)
- Germaine
, directed by
Augusto Genina
and
Augusto Camerini
(Italy, 1923, based on the novel
Germaine
)
- The Prince's Child
, directed by
Luise Fleck
and
Jacob Fleck
(Germany, 1927, loosely based on the novel
Le Roi des montagnes
)
- The Man with a Broken Ear
, directed by
Robert Boudrioz
(1934, based on the novel
L'Homme a l'oreille cassee
)
- Mi vida en tus manos
, directed by
Antonio de Obregon
(Spain, 1943, based on the short story
Le Buste
)
- Trente et Quarante
, directed by
Gilles Grangier
(1945, based on the novel
Trente et Quarante
)
- Le Roi des montagnes
[
fr
]
, directed by
Willy Rozier
(1964, based on the novel
Le Roi des montagnes
)
Notes
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]
References
[
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]
External links
[
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]
French
Wikisource
has original text related to this article:
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