Léon Cladel (

Montauban Montauban (, ; ) is a commune in the southern French department of Tarn-et-Garonne. It is the capital of the department and lies north of Toulouse. Montauban is the most populated town in Tarn-et-Garonne, and the sixth most populated of Oc ...

, 22 March 1834 – 21 July 1892,

Sèvres Sèvres (, ) is a French Communes of France, commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris. It is located from the Kilometre zero, centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department of the Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a populatio ...

) was a French

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

. The son of an artisan, he studied law at

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

and became a solicitor's clerk in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. Cladel made a limited reputation by his first book, ''Les Martyrs ridicules'' (1862), a novel for which

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...

, whose literary disciple Cladel was, wrote a preface. He then returned to his native district of

Quercy Quercy (; , locally ) is a former province of France located in the country's southwest, bounded on the north by Limousin, on the west by Périgord and Agenais, on the south by Gascony and Languedoc, and on the east by Rouergue and Auverg ...

in southwestern France, where he produced a series of stories of peasant life in ''Eral le dompteur'' (1865), ''Le Nomm Qouael'' (1868) and other volumes, similar to the works of Émile Pouvillon. Returning to Paris he published the two novels which are generally acknowledged as his best work, ''Le Bouscassié'' (1869) and ''La Fête votive de Saint-Bartholomée Porte-Glaive'' (1872). ''Une Maudite'' (1876) was judged dangerous to public morals and cost its author a month's imprisonment. Other works by Cladel are ''Les Va-nu-pieds'' (1873), a volume of short stories; ''N'a-qu'un-oeil'' (1882), ''Urbains et ruraux'' (1884), ''Gueux de marque'' (1887), and the posthumous ''Juive errante'' (1897). He died in

on 21 July 1892.

References

* ''La Vie de Léon Cladel'' (Paris, 1905), by his daughter Judith Cladel, containing also an article on Cladel by

Edmond Picard Edmond Picard (15 December 1836 – 19 February 1924) was a Belgian jurist and writer. He was a leading theoretician of antisemitism and racism in Belgium, as well as a champion of Belgian nationalism through his notions of the "Belgian soul" ...

, a complete list of his works, and of the critical articles on his work.
''New General Catalog of Old Books and Authors ''
* ''

The Symbolist Movement in Literature ''The Symbolist Movement in Literature'', first published in 1899, and with additional material in 1919, is a work by Arthur Symons largely credited with bringing French Symbolism to the attention of Anglo-American literary circles. Its first tw ...

'' (1919),

Arthur Symons Arthur William Symons (28 February 186522 January 1945) was a British poet, critic, translator and magazine editor. Life Born in Milford Haven, Wales, to Cornish parents, Symons was educated privately, spending much of his time in France an ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cladel, Leon 1834 births 1892 deaths People from Montauban Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery 19th-century French novelists French male novelists 19th-century French male writers