Philippe, Charles-Louis (1874-1909). Novelist. The son of a Bourbonnais clog-maker, Philippe wrote of the rural poor and the urban underprivileged. Having moved to Paris, he published Quatre histoires de pauvre amour (1897), La Bonne Madeleine et la pauvre Marie (1898), the poignant La Mère et l'enfant (1900/11), one of the important early statements about childhood in French fiction, Bubu de Montparnasse (1901), an acclaimed portrayal of the milieu of prostitution, Le Père Perdrix (1902), Marie Donadieu (1904), and Croquignole (1906). The unfinished versions of Charles Blanchard, a homage to his father, appeared in 1913. He was a democratizer of the French novel, and his understated style and blend of socio-psychological realism infused with a poetic understanding influenced the early Nouvelle Revue Française group.

[David Steel]

The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.