Alphonse Daudet (May 13, 1840 – December 17, 1897) was a French novelist. He was the father of Léon Daudet and Lucien Daudet.

Alphonse Daudet was born in Nîmes, France. His family, on both sides, belonged to the bourgeoisie. The father, Vincent Daudet, was a silk manufacturer - a man dogged through life by misfortune and failure. Alphonse, amid much truancy, had a depressing boyhood. In 1856 he left Lyon, where his schooldays had been mainly spent, and began life as a schoolteacher at Alès, Gard, in the south of France. The position proved to be intolerable. As Dickens declared that all through his prosperous career he was haunted in dreams by the miseries of his apprenticeship to the blacking business, so Daudet says that for months after leaving Alès he would wake with horror thinking he was still among his unruly pupils.

On November 1, 1857 he abandoned teaching, and took refuge with his brother Ernest, only some three years his senior, who was trying, "and thereto soberly," to make a living as a journalist in Paris. Alphonse betook himself to his pen likewise, wrote poems, shortly collected into a small volume Les Amoureuses (1858), which met with a fair reception, obtained employment on the Figaro, then under Cartier de Villemessant's energetic editorship, wrote two or three plays, and began to be recognized, among those interested in literature, as possessing individuality and promise. Morny, Napoleon III's all-powerful minister, appointed him to be one of his secretaries, a post which he held till Morny's death in 1865, and showed him no small kindness. He had put his foot on the road to fortune.

In 1866, Daudet's Lettres de mon moulin, written in Clamart, near Paris, and alluding to a windmill in Fontvieille, Provence, 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. But 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.

Jack, the story of 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 very successful man of letters, publishing novel on novel, Le Nabab (1877), Les Rois en exil (1879), Numa Roumestan (1881), Sappho (1884), L'Immortel (1888), and writing for the stage at frequent intervals, giving to the world his reminiscences in Trente ans de Paris (1887), and Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres (1888). These, with the three Tartarins, Tartarin de Tarascon, Tartarin sur les Alpes, Port-Tarascon, and the admirable short stories, written for the most part before he had acquired fame and fortune, constitute his life work.

Though Daudet defended himself from the charge of imitating Dicks, it is difficult altogether to believe that so many similarities of spirit and manner were quite unsought. What, however, was purely his own was his style. It is a style that may rightly be called "impressionist," full of light and colour, not descriptive after the old fashion, but flashing its intended effect by a masterly juxtaposition of words that are like pigments. Nor does it convey, like the style of the Goncourts, for example, a constant feeling of effort. It is full of felicity and charm, "un charmeur" Zola called him. An intimate friend of Edmond de Goncourt (who died in his house), of Flaubert, of Zola, Daudet belonged essentially to naturalism. His own experiences, his surroundings, the men with whom he had been brought into contact, various persons who had played a part, more or less public, in Paris life, all passed into his art. But he vivified the material supplied by his memory. His world has the great gift of life. L'Immortel is a bitter attack on the Académie française, to which august body Daudet never belonged.

Daudet wrote some charming stories for children, among which may be mentioned La Belle Nivernaise, the story of an old boat and her crew.

His married life - he married in 1867 Julia Allard, who is known by her Impressions de nature et d'art (1879), L'Enfance d'une Parisienne (1883), and by some literary studies written under the pseudonym of Karl Steen. Though Daudet was far from faithful, he was among the literary syphilitics, and having lost his virginity at the age of twelve, and then on sleeping with his friend's mistresses throughout his marriage, Daudet was to undergo several painful treatments and operations for his, later, paralyzing disease.

Alphonse Daudet died in Paris, France on December 16, 1897 and was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.

*Lettres de Mon Moulin (1866) ** -- original language *Le Petit Chose (1868), *Tartarin de Tarascon (1872) ** -- original language ** -- English version *L'Arlésienne (play, 1872) *Contes du Lundi (1875) *Kings in Exile (1879) *Tartarin sur les Alpes (1885) ** -- English version *Port-Tarascon (1890) *Fromont et Risler ** -- English version *The Nabob ** -- English version

*The story of Daudet's earlier years is told in his brother Ernest Daudet's 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 Journal des Goncourt are numerous.

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