5 Short Stories
Five Short Stories
Alphonse Daudet
The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol. XIII, Part 4.
Selected by Charles William Eliot
Copyright © 2001 Bartleby.com, Inc.
Bibliographic Record
Contents
Biographical Note
Criticisms and Interpretations
I. By Henry James
II. By George Pellissier
1. The Siege of Berlin
2. The Last Class—The Story of a Little Alsatian
3. The Child Spy
4. The Game of Billiards
5. The Bad Zouave
Biographical Note
ALPHONSE DAUDET was born at Nîmes in the south of France on May 13, 1840. His father was an unsuccessful silk manufacturer, and his boyhood was far from happy. After a period of schooling at
Lyons, he became at sixteen usher in a school, but before the end of the following year he abandoned a profession in which he found only misery. Going up to Paris he joined his elder brother, Ernest, who was then trying to get a foothold in journalism. At eighteen he published a volume of poems, “Les
Amoureuses,” wrote for the “Figaro,” and began experimenting with playwriting. He attracted the attention of the Duc de Morny, who made him one of his secretaries and in various ways helped him to a start in life.
His first notable success came in 1866 with his “Lettres de mon Moulin,” a series of sketches and stories of great charm and delicacy, and this was followed up by a longer work, “Le petit chose,” a
pathetic fiction based upon his own unhappy youth. In 1872 he produced the first of his three volumes on the amazing “Tartarin of Tarascon,” probably the most vital of all his creations. In “Fromont jeune et
Risler aîné” he created another great character, Delobelle, the broken-down actor, and he took captive the reading world by his combination of humor and pathos, and the vividness of his portraits of types. Pathos was again the chief characteristic of “Jack,” in which the life of a neglected boy at a school which recalls the establishment of Mr. Squeers is not the only parallel between Daudet and Dickens.
Alphonse Daudet
The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, Vol. XIII, Part 4.
Selected by Charles William Eliot
Copyright © 2001 Bartleby.com, Inc.
Bibliographic Record
Contents
Biographical Note
Criticisms and Interpretations
I. By Henry James
II. By George Pellissier
1. The Siege of Berlin
2. The Last Class—The Story of a Little Alsatian
3. The Child Spy
4. The Game of Billiards
5. The Bad Zouave
Biographical Note
ALPHONSE DAUDET was born at Nîmes in the south of France on May 13, 1840. His father was an unsuccessful silk manufacturer, and his boyhood was far from happy. After a period of schooling at
Lyons, he became at sixteen usher in a school, but before the end of the following year he abandoned a profession in which he found only misery. Going up to Paris he joined his elder brother, Ernest, who was then trying to get a foothold in journalism. At eighteen he published a volume of poems, “Les
Amoureuses,” wrote for the “Figaro,” and began experimenting with playwriting. He attracted the attention of the Duc de Morny, who made him one of his secretaries and in various ways helped him to a start in life.
His first notable success came in 1866 with his “Lettres de mon Moulin,” a series of sketches and stories of great charm and delicacy, and this was followed up by a longer work, “Le petit chose,” a
pathetic fiction based upon his own unhappy youth. In 1872 he produced the first of his three volumes on the amazing “Tartarin of Tarascon,” probably the most vital of all his creations. In “Fromont jeune et
Risler aîné” he created another great character, Delobelle, the broken-down actor, and he took captive the reading world by his combination of humor and pathos, and the vividness of his portraits of types. Pathos was again the chief characteristic of “Jack,” in which the life of a neglected boy at a school which recalls the establishment of Mr. Squeers is not the only parallel between Daudet and Dickens.