BARBEY D'AUREVILLY, JULES

BARBEY D'AUREVILLY, JULES. - French writer, b. at Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte in 1868, d. in Paris in 1889. A personal and effective novelist, he took a stand against naturalism, proclaiming his Catholic and legitimist sentiments; he produced works of uneven value but of interest. He did not shrink from sometimes recounting boldnesses and perversions that alienated his readers, as in the novel Une vieille maîtresse (1851), and which constitute perhaps the most singular, but also the least sympathetic, aspect of his work as a vigorous and bizarre writer. B. d'A. sought to defend himself against criticism by maintaining that descriptions of vice aimed only at arousing abhorrence of II.
B. d'A.'s masterpiece is considered to be the novel L'Ensorcèlee (1854), but also noteworthy are Le chevalier Des Touches (1864), Un prêtre marié (1865), Les Diaboliques (1874), Une histoire sans nom (1883), Du Dandysme et de G. Brummel (1845). Among his essays: Goethe et Diderot (1880), Les Ridicules du temps (1883), Sensations d'art (1886), Mémoires historiques et littéraires (1893), Romanciers d'hier et d'avant-hier (1904), Poésie et poètes (1906), Littérature étrangère (1891), etc.