Literary career
In 1866 appeared Lettres de mon moulin, which won the attention of
many readers. The first of his longer books, Le petit chose
(186
, did not, however, produce any very popular
sensation. It is, in its main feature, the story of his own earlier
years told with much grace and pathos. The year 1872 produced the
famous Aventures prodigieuses de Tartarin de Tarascon, and the
three-act piece L'Arlésienne. But Fromont jeune et Risler aîné
(1874) at once took the world by storm. It struck a note, not new
certainly in English literature, but comparatively new in French.
Here was a writer who possessed the gift of laughter and tears, a
writer not only sensible to pathos and sorrow, but also to moral
beauty. He could create too. His characters were real and also
typical; the rates, the men who in life's battle had flashed in the
pan, were touched with a master hand. The book was alive. It gave
the illusion of a real world.
Jack, the story of an illegitimate child, a martyr to his mother's
selfishness, which followed in 1876, served only to deepen the same
impression. Henceforward his career was that of a very successful
man of letters, publishing novel on novel, Le Nabab (1877), Les
Rois en exil (1879), Numa Roumestan (1881), Sapho (1884),
L'Immortel (188, and
writing for the stage at frequent intervals, giving to the world
his reminiscences in Trente ans de Paris (1887), and Souvenirs d'un
homme de lettres (188. These,
with the three Tartarins, Tartarin de Tarascon, Tartarin sur les
Alpes, Port-Tarascon, and the admirable short stories, written for
the most part before he had acquired fame and fortune, constitute
his life work.
Though Daudet defended himself from the charge of imitating
Dickens, it is difficult altogether to believe that so many
similarities of spirit and manner were quite unsought. What,
however, was purely his own was his style. It is a style that may
rightly be called "impressionist," full of light and colour, not
descriptive after the old fashion, but flashing its intended effect
by a masterly juxtaposition of words that are like pigments. Nor
does it convey, like the style of the Goncourts, for example, a
constant feeling of effort. It is full of felicity and charm, "un
charmeur" Zola has called him. An intimate friend of Edmond de
Goncourt (who died in his house), of Flaubert, of Zola, Daudet
belonged essentially to the naturalist school of fiction. His, own
experiences, his surroundings, the men with whom he had been
brought into contact, various persons who had played a part, more
or less public, in Paris life, all passed into his art. But he
vivified the material supplied by his memory. His world has the
great gift of life. L'Immortel is a bitter attack on the Académie
française, to which august body Daudet never belonged.
Daudet wrote some charming stories for children, among which may be
mentioned La Belle Nivernaise, the story of an old boat and her
crew.
His married life - he married in 1867 Julia Allard - seems to have
been 'singularly happy.' There was perfect intellectual harmony,
and Madame Daudet herself possessed much of his literary gift; she
is known by her Impressions de nature et d'art (1879), L'Enfance
d'une Parisienne (1883), and by some literary studies written under
the pseudonym of Karl Steen. In his later years Daudet suffered
from insomnia, failure of health and consequent use of
chloral.
Alphonse Daudet died in Paris, France on December 16, 1897 and was
interred in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France.
courtesy of Wikipedia, the free
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