IV
LITTERATEURS: FOREIGN WRITERS
Anatole France Himself, by Jean-Jacques Brousson.
Anatole France and His Circle, by Paul Gsell.
Anatole France, the Man and His Work, by J. Lewis May.
Anatole France à la Béchellerie, by Marcel Le Goff.
Sainte-Beuve, by Lewis Freeman Mott.
Leonid Andreyev, by Alexander Kaun.
Joseph Conrad, by Ford Madox Ford.
John Donne, by Hugh l’Anson Fausset.
The Wind and the Rain, by Thomas Burke.
Robert Louis Stevenson, by John A. Steuart.
Anatole France was picturesque, enigmatic and intriguing. He attracted illuminators and interpreters. His protracted age gave biographers ample time to prepare their revelations, interpretations and judgments which came with a rush soon after his death—and before, and which still come. The last of all these biographies is the best, that is, it gives the best picture of him, both as individual and as savant. M. Brousson, his Secretary for many years, had abundant opportunity to see Anatole France without the mask he habitually wore. He has embodied his observations and reflections in Anatole France Himself, and all readers save literary historians and critics will find it satisfying.
Much was written of Anatole France during the latter years of his life. His mode of life, methods of work, political, religious and social ideas; his theoretical antinomianism and his practical conformity to convention; and more than all his erudition excited curiosity, and from attempt to satisfy it, there resulted envy in some, dislike in others, admiration in all.