NODIER, CHARLES French author, was born at Besancon. His father, on the outbreak of the Revolution, was appointed mayor of Besancon and Charles is said to have been a member of the Jacobin club when he could not have been more than 12 years old. He was sent to Strasbourg, where he lived in the house of Eulogius Schneider, the notorious Jacobin governor of Alsace, but a good Greek scholar. He became librarian in his native town, but his exertions in the cause of suspected persons brought him under suspicion. For a skit on Napoleon, in 1803, he was imprisoned for some months. He then lived a very unsettled life at Besancon, Dole, where he married, and in other places in the Jura. During these wanderings he wrote Le Peintre de Salz bourg, journal des emotions d'un coeur souffrant, suivi des Medi tations du cloitre (1803). He continued to lead an unsettled life until in 1824 he was appointed to the librarianship of the Biblio theque de l'Arsenal. He was elected a member of the Academy in 1833, and died on Jan. 27, 1844. During his 20 years at the arsenal he was able to supply a centre and rallying place to a knot of young literary men of greater individual talent than himself— the so-called Romanticists of 5830—and to colour their tastes and work very decidedly with his own predilections. Victor Hugo,
Alfred de Musset and Sainte-Beuve all acknowledged their obli gations to him. He was a passionate admirer of Goethe and of Shakespeare. The best examples of his work are to be found in the volume entitled Melanges tires d'une petite bibliotheque.
His Description raisonnee d'une jolie collection de livres (1844), which is a catalogue of the books in his library, contains a life by Francis Wey and a complete bibliography of his numerous works. See also Sainte-Beuve, Portraits litteraires, vol. ii.; G. Brandes, Main Currents in 19th Century Literature (1871) ; Prosper Merimee, Por traits historiques et litteraires (1874) ; A. Estignard, Correspondence inedite de Charles Nodier, 1796-1844 (1876) ; J. Larat, Bibliographie critique des oeuvres de Charles Nodier, 178o-1844 (1923) ; and La Tradition et l'exotisme dans l'oeuvre de Charles Nodier (1925) ; J. Vodoz, La Fee aux Miettes, Essai sur le role du subconscient dans l'oeuvre de Charles Nodier (1925).