Léon Hennique Novel

Complete Novel 'A Character' & Rare French Literary Translations

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Category: Octave Mirbeau – Les Écrivains

  • Octave Mirbeau: Paul Hervieu

    Octave Mirbeau’s sharp, witty critique of Paul Hervieu’s work, exploring the writer’s evolution from savage pessimism to profound consciousness. A masterful essay on 19th century French literature, comparing Hervieu with Maeterlinck and Barrès. I haven’t a clue which critic first decided, upon encountering M. Paul Hervieu’s work, that the man was “a deadpan joker.” That’s…

  • Octave Mirbeau: The Literary Inquest

    Octave Mirbeau’s scathing review of Jules Huret’s ‘Literary Inquiry’ – a brilliant satirical exposé of vanity, envy and pettiness among 64 prominent French writers of the Belle Époque. Sharp wit meets literary criticism in this masterful takedown of literary pretensions. You simply must read this book: The Inquiry into Literary Evolution by M. Jules Huret.…

  • Octave Mirbeau: The Bats

    Octave Mirbeau’s sharp-witted critique of Robert de Montesquiou’s Les Chauves-Souris (The Bats) – a masterful literary review showcasing the French critic’s signature irony and insight into Belle Époque poetry and symbolist aesthetics. At this year’s Salon du Champ-de-Mars, there was a rather precious piece of furniture on display: a chest of drawers expertly crafted by…

  • Octave Mirbeau: Revery

    A sharp, satirical essay by Octave Mirbeau (1894) on literary criticism, journalism’s moral failings, and the ephemeral nature of the press. Translated from French, capturing Mirbeau’s biting wit and ironic observations on critics who condemn without reading. People can think what they like about M. Brunetière. Plenty think ill of him; that’s their business. I…

  • Octave Mirbeau: Gossip

    Octave Mirbeau’s scathing 1894 defence of Félix Fénéon, arrested without evidence during France’s anarchist trials. A masterpiece of satirical journalism exposing judicial abuse and political persecution in Belle Époque Paris. We must return to the case of Félix Fénéon. You don’t violently tear a man from his life; you don’t cast mourning into his home;…

  • Octave Mirbeau: The Outcasts

    Octave Mirbeau’s scathing review of Édouard Conte’s Les Mal-Vus – a sharp critique of French society’s hypocrisy towards outcasts, prostitutes and the urban poor. Here is a strange and curious book: The Outcasts by Édouard Conte. A parade—sometimes comic, more often tragic, always gripping—of all that crawls unknown, misunderstood and terrifying in the underbelly of…

  • Octave Mirbeau: The Framework

    Octave Mirbeau’s scathing 1895 review of Paul Hervieu’s novel L’Armature (The Framework), a masterful critique exposing how money forms the hidden skeleton of high society. A sharp, witty analysis of Belle Époque corruption and hypocrisy. “…The only general basis for worldly relations, the sole binding force for this mass that comes from so many quarters,…

  • Octave Mirbeau: Under the Knout!

    Octave Mirbeau’s searing 1895 essay on Georges Kennan’s exposé of Tsarist Russia’s brutal exile system. A masterpiece of political commentary revealing the horrors of Siberian prisons and the arbitrary cruelty of ‘administrative relocation’ under the Russian Empire. That excellent and fascinating Franco-Belgian journal, La Société nouvelle, has begun serialising in its latest issue a book…

  • Octave Mirbeau: Clemenceau

    Octave Mirbeau’s sharp tribute to Georges Clémenceau (1895) – a biting essay on politics, literature, and the triumph of ideas over parliamentary mediocrity. To Gustave Geffroy Do you remember, dear Geffroy, that exquisite day—that restorative day—we spent in a little house with our friend, just days after that memorable electoral campaign? A campaign where so…

  • Octave Mirbeau: Knut Hamsun

    Octave Mirbeau’s sharp 1895 critique dismissing Auguste Strindberg while championing Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun and his extraordinary novel Hunger – a masterpiece about poverty, pride and artistic genius. One must admit that Mr Auguste Strindberg was rather an unfortunate invention—unfortunate for him and for us. We thought we had got our hands on another Ibsen.…