Alphonse Daudet

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French writer of poetry, plays and novels. After an unhappy childhood with an education cut short by financial difficulties, he became an instructor at Ales, an experience referred to in his first novel, 1868. Moving to Paris in 1857, his volumes of romantic verse and short stories received such success that he was hired as secretary to Duc de Morney, with whom he traveled to Algeria in 1860. Back in Paris he started writing plays, usually in collaboration with his wife, Julia Allard, whom he married in 1867. During the Franco-Prussian war he enlisted in the army, but fled from the terrors of the Paris Commune of 1871. After a move to Champrosay, he began writing the numerous novels and short stories that made him famous. His style was easy and readable in works that include "Le Nabob," 1877 and "Sapho," 1884. Daudet and Allard's son Leon, born in 1867, later became a noted journalist and author in Paris. During his last years Daudet suffered from the consequences of a venereal disease, which he had contracted in his youth. He depicted his own life in "Thirty Years of Paris" and "My Literary Life," 1888. His satirical novel about the Académie Française, "The Immortal," 1888) was considered a revenge - Daudet was never elected a member. Daudet died in Champrosay, 12/15/1897. Link to Wikipedia biography