CROWNED BY THE FRENCH ACADEMY

Alphonse Daudet was a French novelist and playwright. His father was a silk manufacturer who suffered reverses and lost his property. Daudet took a post as a schoolteacher at Ales, Gard, but found it intolerable, and moved to Paris to live with his brother, Ernest, who was working as a journalist. Daudet wrote poetry and several plays, and secured employment as a secretary to Morny, a Minister of Napoleon III.

Tartarin of Tarascon is a tale of the adventures of Tartarin, a local hero of Tarascon, a small town in southern France.

The book spawned two sequels: Tartarin sur les Alpes and Port-Tarascon, as well as three film adaptations. Unpopular in the area of Tarascon when first issued, the Tartarin adventures made Tarascon famous, and there is now a museum in Tarascon devoted to Tartarin.