Anatole France

Anatole France, the 1921 Nobel laureate for literature, was born Jacques Anatole Thibault in Paris on April 16, 1844, the son of a Paris book dealer. He attended the Parisian boys' school Collège Stanislas, where he received a classical education, and later matriculated at the École des Chartes. For 20 years after finishing his education, he worked at various positions, including the post of assistant librarian of the French Senate from 1876 to 1890, before devoting himself full-time to writing. He was able to write even when he worked, and in his life-time in which he became the premier French man of letters, he produced a vast output of novels, as well as works in every genre. A story-teller in the French classical style, his literary precursors were Voltaire and Fénélon. His urbane skepticism and enlightened hedonism were in the spirit and tradition of the French enlightenment of the 18th century. His epicurean philosophy was limned in his 1895 book of aphorisms, "The Garden of Epicurus."