Curated playlist
French male essayists
- Jules VerneJules Verne has been the second most-translated author in the world since 1979. Only Agatha Christie ranks higher.
- Denis DiderotJailed writer Denis Diderot annotated Paradise Lost with a toothpick and ink made from slate and wine.
- Victor HugoVictor Hugo asked for a pauper's funeral and got the largest in French history.
- Albert CamusAlbert Camus thanked his old schoolteacher right after his mother when he won the Nobel Prize.
- André GideA 1924 defense of his sexuality kept André Gide from ever being nominated to the Académie Française.
- Pierre-Joseph ProudhonPierre-Joseph Proudhon was the first person known to call himself an anarchist, and many consider him the father of anarchism. He reached that title through the printing trade, having taught himself Latin so that he could print books in…
- Claude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-Strauss died in 2009, and for four days the world did not know.
- Michel de MontaigneMichel de Montaigne was raised speaking Latin before French. His father made every servant address him only in Latin.
- StendhalStendhal shaved every day during Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. He also wrote under more than a hundred pseudonyms.
- Henri PoincaréHenri Poincaré won a royal prize for a problem he did not solve. His entry still revealed the first chaotic system.
- Roland BarthesRoland Barthes was walking home through the streets of Paris on the 25th of February 1980 when the driver of a laundry van knocked him down. A month later, on the 26th of March, he died from the pulmonary complications that followed. He…
- Charles-François LebrunA relative stole the record of his prosecution, saving Charles-François Lebrun from the guillotine.
- Joseph FouchéJoseph Fouché voted to execute Louis XVI, then served the dead king's brother.