Curated playlist
French male novelists
- VoltaireThe line Voltaire is most quoted for was written in 1906, long after he died.
- Jules VerneJules Verne has been the second most-translated author in the world since 1979. Only Agatha Christie ranks higher.
- Gustave FlaubertGustave Flaubert's first novel, Madame Bovary, put him on trial for immorality. He and his publisher were acquitted.
- 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.
- Alexandre DumasIn 2002, France moved Alexandre Dumas's ashes to the Pantheon, with guards dressed as the four Musketeers.
- MontesquieuMontesquieu published The Spirit of Law anonymously in 1748, and the Church banned it in 1751.
- André GideA 1924 defense of his sexuality kept André Gide from ever being nominated to the Académie Française.
- Marquis de SadeOn the 2nd of July 1789, the Marquis de Sade stood at a window of the Bastille and shouted through a megaphone he had improvised himself. He told the people in the street below that the warders were murdering the prisoners. That evening he…
- Louis-Ferdinand CélineManuscripts of French novelist Céline, missing since 1944, were handed to police in March 2020.
- François RabelaisRabelais imagined an abbey with a swimming pool, no clocks and one rule: Do What You Want.
- Jean GiraudouxPlaywright Jean Giraudoux died in Paris in 1944, and some suspect poison. His death has never been fully explained.
- StendhalStendhal shaved every day during Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. He also wrote under more than a hundred pseudonyms.
- Raymond QueneauRaymond Queneau calculated that his book of sonnets would take 190,258,751 years to read nonstop.
- Éric RohmerÉric Rohmer wore a false moustache to the New York premiere of one of his films.