Alphonse Daudet
French novelist, playwright, and poet (1840–1897)
Louis Marie Alphonse Daudet (French: [alfɔ̃s dodɛ]; 13 May 1840 – 16 December 1897) was a French novelist and writer of short stories. He was the husband of Julia Daudet and father of Edmée, Léon and Lucien Daudet.
Early life
Daudet was born in Nîmes, France, on 13 May 1840. His family, on both sides, belonged to the bourgeoisie. His father, Vincent Daudet, was a silk manufacturer—a man dogged through life by misfortune and failure. Alphonse, amid much truancy, had a depressing boyhood. In 1856 he left Lyon, where his schooldays had been mainly spent, and began his career as a schoolteacher at Alès, Gard, in the south of France. The position proved to be intolerable and Daudet said later that for months after leaving Alès he would wake with horror, thinking he was still among his unruly pupils. These experiences and others were reflected in his novel Le Petit Chose.
On 1 November 1857, he abandoned teaching and took refuge with his brother Ernest Daudet, three years his senior, who was trying, "and thereto soberly", to make a living as a journalist in Paris.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Alphonse Daudet” is french novelist, playwright, and poet (1840–1897). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Alphonse, Daudet and French, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q228546. VIAF identifies the subject as 4928621. The Library of Congress control number is n50037948. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1840, 1897, 1856 and 1857.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alphonse Daudet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.