Tartarin of Tarascon

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. Tartarin is a braggart and liar, inventing adventures and gaining a reputation as a swashbuckler. To live up to his reputation, he must travel to Algiers to face the lions. But Algiers is not the oriental land of fable, and there are no lions left to hunt.

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.