Twenty Years After


A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end
of Volume XX.

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ALPHONSE DAUDET

Tartarin of Tarascon

Alphonse Daudet, the celebrated French novelist, was born at
Nimes on May 13, 1840, and as a youth of seventeen went to
Paris, where he began as a poet at eighteen, and at twenty-two
made his first efforts in the drama. He soon found his feet as
a contributor to the leading journals of the day and a
successful writer for the stage. He was thirty-two when he
wrote "Tartarin of Tarascon," than which no better comic tale
has been produced in modern times. Tarascon is a real town,
not far from the birthplace of Daudet, and the people of the
district have always had a reputation for "drawing the long
bow." It was to satirise this amiable weakness of his southern
compatriots that the novelist created the character of
Tartarin, but while he makes us laugh at the absurd
misadventures of the lion-hunter, it will be noticed how
ingeniously he prevents our growing out of temper with him,