The Four Wise Men
1980 novel by Michel Tournier
The Four Wise Men (French: Gaspard, Melchior et Balthazar) is a 1980 novel by Michel Tournier, published by Éditions Gallimard. Ralph Manheim translated the work into English, and the translation was first published in the United States by Doubleday and Company in 1982, and in the United Kingdom by William Collins, Sons in 1982.
It is currently published in English by Johns Hopkins University Press.
It is a variation of the Biblical Magi tale.
Jonathan Baumbach of The New York Times wrote that the words in the English translation were "a mix of modern idiom and literary diction".
Story
The book portrays four, not three magi, with one having a late arrival to important events. This fourth prince eventually goes to Sodom.
Reception
John Weightman of The Observer stated that there was "symbolic magnification" in this book; he argued that it had "incidental good things" though he felt overall it was "a luscious, rather over-loaded fairy-tale".
Kirkus Reviews stated that compared to Gemini, the Four Wise Men has more "more narrative enchantment" thematically, and is not as "dense". Kirkus concluded that this is one of the "better" books by the author.
The public source identifies “The Four Wise Men” as 1980 novel by Michel Tournier. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Four, Wise and novel.
Why this record matters
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3098730. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980 and 1982.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “The Four Wise Men” 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.