biography
| name: |
Barbey d'Aurevilly, Jules-Amédée
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pronunciation:
[bah(r)bay dohruhveeyee]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1808–89)
|
| biography:
| Novelist and critic, born in Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, NW France. He studied law at Caen (1829–33), then went to Paris (1837) and began to write for periodicals. Despite poverty he became legendary as a dandy, taking Beau Brummell as his model and publishing a treatise Du dandysme et de Georges Brummell (1845). In 1869 he became sole critic for Le Constitutionnel, and his reputation grew. He described, in a romantic style, dark family stories inspired by his own impoverished Norman aristocratic life. Two of his best novels are set against a background of the French Revolution: Le Chevalier des Touches (1864) and Un Prêtre marié (1865). Diaboliques (1874), a collection of six short stories, is often considered his masterpiece. It was brought to the screen by Henri-Georges Clouzot in 1954. He also produced 15 volumes of biographies, Les oeuvres et les hommes, as well as a Journal (1836–64). |
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