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  • Anatole France’s Merrie Tales: The Miracle of the Magpie

    While the previous chapter was about boasting, this one, ‘The Miracle of the Magpie’, which plays in the town of Le Puy-en-Velay in the beautiful Auvergne district of France, seems to be all about mocking. Mocking the beliefs of people “elbowing their way” to the place where they seek a pardon for their sins. Oh, Read more

  • A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 7. “NO! BY ETERNAL JUSTICE!”

    In her letter Jesse does not describe or elaborate on her dire predicament. It is only following the arrival of Larchmont’s brother, Harry, back in Paris for all to be revealed in personal dialogue between the two. Given the generous insights of our narrator, our good readers may hazard a guess at what has occurred Read more

  • Anatole France’s Merrie Tales: Olivier’s Brag

    Perhaps a word of warning about this story by Anatole France from the year 1909. The ending in particular might offend, so be prepared to make an allowance for attitudes in it being 112 years old—the original French chanson de geste eight centuries earlier than that. The story, a satire, is mainly about boasting. The Read more

  • Coming soon: Anatole France’s The Merrie Tales of Jacques Tournebroche

    Commencing soon and continuing week-about with Archibald Clavering Gunter’s Baron Montez of Panama and Paris, we present an introduction to the work of the great Nobel Prize winning poet and novelist, Anatole France (1844-1924). For The Merrie Tales of Jacques Tournebroche (1908), France cast back into historical mists at once factual and imagined, for a Read more

  • A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 6. Jesse’s Letter

    Although this chapter begins in 1880, it spans the years to 1887. The Baron Montez, Larchmont and his ward, Jessie, arrive in Paris at the centre of a glorious time which in the future will be known as the ‘Belle Epoque’. Imagine wide boulevards where bunches of flowers spill from vendors’ baskets onto the pavement Read more