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ABOUT, EDMOND FRANCOIS VALENTIN (1828...
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ABOUT, EDMOND See also:FRANCOIS VALENTIN (1828-1885) , See also:French novelist, publicist and journalist, was See also:born on the 14th of See also:February 1828, at Dieuze, in See also:Lorraine. The boy's school career was brilliant. In 1848 he entered the Ecole Normale, taking the second See also:place in the See also:annual competition for See also:admission, See also:Taine being first. Among his See also:college contemporaries were Taine, Francisque, See also:Sarcey, Challemel-Lacour and the See also:ill-starred See also:Prevost-Paradol. Of them all About was, according to Sarcey, the most highly vitalized, exuberant, brilliant and " undisciplined." At the end of his college career he joined the French school in See also:Athens, but if we may believe his own 'See also:account, it had never been his intention to follow the professorial career, for which the Ecole Normale was a preparation, and in 1853 he returned to See also:France and frankly gave himself to literature and journalism. A See also:book on See also:Greece, La Grece contemporaine (1855), which did not spare See also:Greek susceptibilities, had an immediate success. In Tolla (1855) About was charged with See also:drawing too freely on an earlier See also:Italian novel, See also:Vittoria Savelli (See also:Paris, 1841). This caused a strong See also:prejudice against him, and he was the See also:object of numerous attacks, to which he was ready enough to retaliate. The Lettres d'un bon jeune homme, written to the See also:Figaro under the See also:signature of Valentin de Quevilly, provoked more animosities. During the next few years, with indefatigable See also:energy, and generally with full public recognition, he wrote novels, stories, a play—which failed,—a book-pamphlet on the See also:Roman question, many See also:pamphlets on other subjects of the See also:day, newspaper articles innumerable, some See also:art criticisms, rejoinders to the attacks of his enemies, and popular manuals of See also:political See also:economy, L'A BC du travailleur (1868), Le progres (1864). About's attitude towards the See also:empire was that of a candid friend. He believed in its improvability, greeted the liberal See also:ministry of Emile 011ivier at the beginning of 187o with delight and welcomed the Franco-See also:German See also:War. That day of See also:enthusiasm had a terrible morrow. For his own See also:personal See also:part he lost the loved See also:home near Saverne in See also:Alsace, which he had See also:purchased in 1858 out of the fruits of his earlier See also:literary successes. With the fall of the empire he became a republican, and, always an inveterate See also:anti-clerical, he threw himself with ardour into the See also:battle against the conservative reaction which made See also:head during the first years of the See also:republic. From 1872 onwards for some five or six years his See also:paper, the XIX ° Siecle, of which he was the See also:heart and soul, became a See also:power in the See also:land. But the republicans never quite forgave the tardiness of his See also:conversion, and no place rewarded his later zeal. On the 23rd See also:January 1884 he was elected a member of the French See also:Academy, but died on the 16th of January 1885, before taking his seat. His journalism—of which specimens in his earlier and later See also:manners will be found in the two See also:series of Lettres d'un bon jeune homme a sa See also:cousin Madeleine (1861 and 1863), and the See also:posthumous collection, Le See also:dix-neuvieme siecle (1892)—was of its nature ephemeral. So were the pamphlets, See also:great and small. His political economy See also:ABRAHAM 69 was that of an orthodox popularizer, and in no sense See also:epoch-making. His dramas are negligible. His more serious novels, Madelon (1863), L'infdme (1867), the three that See also:form the trilogy of the Vieille See also:Roche (1866), and Le roman d'un brave homme (188o) —a See also:kind of counterblast to the view of the French workman presented in See also:Zola's Assommoir—contain striking and amusing scenes, no doubt, but scenes which are often suggestive of the See also:stage, while description, dissertation, explanation too frequently take the place of See also:life. His best See also:work after all is to be found in the books that are almost wholly farcical, Le nez d'un notaire (1862); Le roi See also:des montagnes (1856); L'homme d l'oreille cassee (1862); Trente et quarante (1858); Le cas de M. See also:Guerin (1862). Here his most genuine wit, his sprightliness, his vivacity, the See also:fancy that was in him, have See also:free See also:play. " You will never be more than a little See also:Voltaire," said one of his masters when he was a lad at school. It was a true prophecy. (F. T. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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