DAUDET, ALPHONSE (184o-1897), French novelist, was born at Nimes on May 13, 184o, the son of a silk manufacturer. The lad, amid much truancy, had but a depressing boyhood. In 1856 he left Lyons, where his schooldays had been mainly spent, and began life as an usher at Alais, in the south. The position proved to be intolerable. On Nov. 1, 18S7, he abandoned teach ing, and took refuge with his brother Ernest in Paris. Alphonse wrote poems, shortly collected into a small volume Les Amour euses (1858), which met with a fair reception, obtained employ ment on the Figaro, and wrote two or three plays. The duc de Morny appointed him to be one of his secretaries-a post which he held till Morny's death in 1865.
In 1866 appeared Lettres de mon moulin. The first of his longer books, Le petit chose (1868), the pathetic story of his own earlier years, is told with much grace and pathos. The year 1872 produced the famous Aventures prodigieuses de Tartarin de Tar ascon, and the three-act piece L'Arlesienne. Fromont jeune et Risler aine (1874) 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. Jack, the story of an illegitimate child, a martyr to his mother's selfish ness, followed in 1876. Other novels followed: Le Nabab (1877), Les Rois en exil (1879), Name Roumestan (1881), Sapho (1884) and L'Immortel (1888). Daudet then wrote his own reminiscences in Trente ans de Paris (1887) and Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres (1888). These, with the three Tartarins-Tartarin the mighty hunter, Tartarin the mountaineer, Tartarin the colonist 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 similar ities 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, to whose work it owed something, 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 French Academy, 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 is known by her Impressions de nature et d'art (1879), L'Enf once 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. He died in Paris on Dec. 17, 1897.
The story of Daudet's earlier years is told in his brother Ernest Daudet's Mon frere et moi. There is a good deal of autobiographical detail in Daudet's Trente ans de Paris and Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres, and also scattered in his other books. The references to him in the Journal des Goncourt are numerous. See also L. A. Daudet, Alphonse Daudet (1898), and biographical and critical essays by R. H. Sherard (1894) ; by A. Gerstmann (5883) ; by B. Diederich (1900) ; by A. Hermant (1903), and a bibliography by J. Brivois (1895) ; also The Works of Alphonse Daudet, translated by L. Ensor, H. Frith, E. Bartow (5902, etc.) . Criticism of Daudet is also to be found in F. Brunetiere, Le Roman naturaliste (new ed., J. Lemaitre, Les Contemporains (vols. ii. and iv.) ; G. Pellissier, Le Mouvement litteraire an siecle (189o) ; A. Symons, Studies in Prose and Verse (1904) .