Editing Alphonse Daudet (section)

==Literary career==
[[File:Windmill of Alphonse Daudet.JPG|thumb|left|Daudet's [[Windmill|mill]]]]

In 1866, Daudet's ''[[Lettres de mon moulin]]'' (''Letters from My Windmill''), written in [[Clamart]], near Paris, and alluding to a [[windmill]] in [[Fontvieille, Bouches-du-Rhône|Fontvieille]], [[Provence]],{{Citation needed|date=March 2017}} won the attention of many readers. The first of his longer books, ''[[Le Petit Chose]]'' (1868), did not, however, produce popular sensation. It is, in the main, the story of his own earlier years told with much grace and pathos. The year 1872 brought the famous ''[[Aventures prodigieuses de Tartarin de Tarascon]]'', and the three-act play ''[[L'Arlésienne (play)|L'Arlésienne]]''. But ''[[Fromont and Risler|Fromont jeune et Risler aîné]]'' (1874) at once took the world by storm. It struck a note, not new certainly in English literature, but comparatively new in French. His creativeness resulted in characters that were real and also typical.<ref name="EB1911"/>

''[[Jack (Daudet novel)|Jack]]'', [[Illegitimacy in fiction#Written works|a novel about an illegitimate child]], a martyr to his mother's selfishness, which followed in 1876, served only to deepen the same impression. Henceforward his career was that of a successful [[man of letters]], mainly spent writing novels: ''Le Nabab'' (1877), ''Les Rois en exil'' (1879), ''Numa Roumestan'' (1881), ''[[Sapho (novel)|Sapho]]'' (1884), ''L'Immortel'' (1888), and writing for the stage: reminiscing in ''Trente ans de Paris'' (1887) and ''Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres'' (1888). These, with the three [[Tartarin]]s<ref>Sachs, Murray (1966). "Alphonse Daudet's Tartarin Trilogy," ''The Modern Language Review,'' Vol. 61, No. 2, pp. 209–217.</ref>–''[[Tartarin de Tarascon]]'', ''[[Tartarin sur les Alpes]]'', ''[[Port-Tarascon]]''–and the short stories, written for the most part before he had acquired fame and fortune, constitute his life work.<ref name="EB1911"/>

''L'Immortel'' is a bitter attack on the [[Académie française]], to which august body Daudet never belonged. Daudet also wrote for children, including ''La Belle Nivernaise'', the story of an old boat and her crew. In 1867 Daudet married Julia Allard, author of ''Impressions de nature et d'art'' (1879), ''L'Enfance d'une Parisienne'' (1883), and some literary studies written under the pseudonym "Karl Steen".<ref name="EB1911"/>

Daudet was far from faithful, and was one of a generation of French literary [[syphilitic]]s.<ref>"Alphonse Daudet's Illness", ''The British Medical Journal'', Vol. 2, No. 3745, 1932, p. 722.</ref> Having lost his virginity at the age of twelve, he then slept with his friends' mistresses throughout his marriage. Daudet would undergo several painful treatments and operations for his subsequently paralysing disease. His journal entries relating to the pain he experienced from [[tabes dorsalis]] are collected in the volume ''[[In the Land of Pain]]'', translated by [[Julian Barnes]]. He died in Paris on 16 December 1897, and was interred at that city's [[Père Lachaise Cemetery]].

* The story of Daudet's earlier years is told in his brother [[Ernest Daudet]]'s [https://archive.org/stream/monfrreetmoisou00daudgoog#page/n12/mode/2up ''Mon frère et moi'']. There is a good deal of autobiographical detail in Daudet's ''Trente ans de Paris'' and ''Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres'', and also scattered in his other books. The references to him in the ''[[Goncourt Journal|Journal des Goncourt]]'' are numerous.<ref name="EB1911"/>