Paul Adam (French novelist)

This article is about the French novelist. For other uses, see Paul Adam (disambiguation).

Paul Auguste Marie Adam (7 December 1862 – 1 January 1920) was a French novelist who became an early proponent of Symbolism in France, and one of the founders of the Symbolist review Le Symboliste.^[1] He was a prominent writer in Montmartre's anarchist movement.^[2][3]

Paul Adam before 1904; Photo of Nadar

Paul Adam, woodcut by Félix Vallotton

Career

Adam's first novel, Chair molle ("Soft Flesh"), was the story of a prostitute in the Naturalist manner, which led to him being prosecuted for immorality before the Cour d'assises and sentenced to a fortnight in prison and a 500-franc fine.^[4] Together with Jean Moréas, he co-wrote Les Demoiselles Goubert, a novel that marked the transition to Symbolism in French literature.^[5] His Lettres de Malaisie (1897) was speculative fiction about politics in the future.^[1] He also wrote a series of historical novels that dealt with the period of the Napoleonic Wars and their aftermath; the first installment in the series, La Force, was published in 1899. It was followed by L'enfant d'Austerlitz (1901), La ruse (1902) and Au soleil de Juillet (1903).^[1] His work was part of the literature event in the art competition at the 1912 Summer Olympics.^[6]

He was born and died in Paris.^[7]

Works

• Chair molle (1885)
• Soi (1886)
• Les Demoiselles Goubert (with Jean Moréas, 1886)
• Le Thé chez Miranda (with Jean Moréas, 1886)
• La glèbe (1887)
• Les Volontés merveilleuses: Être (1888)
• Les Volontés merveilleuses: L'essence de soleil (1890)
• Les Volontés merveilleuses: en décor (1890)
• L'Époque: Le Vice filial (1891)
• L'Époque: Robes rouges (1891)
• L'Époque: Les Cœurs utiles (1892)
• L'Automne (1893, a censored play)
• Le Conte futur (1893)
• Critique des mœurs (1893)
• Les Images sentimentales (1893)
• Princesses byzantines (1893)
• La Parade amoureuse (1894)
• Le Mystère des foules (1895)
• Les Cœurs nouveaux (1896)
• La Force du mal (1896)
• L'Année de Clarisse (1897, illustrated by Gaston Darbour)
• La bataille d'Uhde (1897)
• Le Vice filial (1898, illustrated by Jan Dědina)
• Le Temps et la Vie:

1. La Force (1899)
2. L'Enfant d'Austerlitz (1901)
3. La Ruse, 1827-1828 (1903)
4. Au soleil de juillet, 1829-1830 (1903)

• Basile et Sophia (1901)
• Lettres de Malaisie (1898)
• Le Troupeau de Clarisse (1904)
• Le Serpent noir (1905)
• Vues d'Amérique (1906)
• Clarisse et l'homme heureux (1907)
• La Morale des Sports (1907)
• La cité prochaine (1908)
• Les Impérialismes et la morale des peuples (1908)
• Le Malaise du monde latin (1910)
• Le Trust (1910)
• Contre l’Aigle (1910)
• Stéphanie (1913)
• Le Lion d'Arras (1919)
• Notre Carthage (1922)
• Dieu (1924, published posthumously in La Phalange)

Further reading

• "ADAM Paul", Le Maitron (in French), Paris: Maitron/Editions de l'Atelier, 2020-03-10, retrieved 2023-03-18