Paul Adam (French novelist)

Paul Adam before 1904; Photo of Nadar

Paul Adam, woodcut by Félix Vallotton

Paul Adam (7 December 1862 – 2 January 1920) was a French novelist who became an early proponent of Symbolism in France, and one of the founders of the Symbolist review .^[1]

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.^[2] Together with Jean Moréas, he co-wrote Les Demoiselles Goubert, a novel that marked the transition between Naturalism and Symbolism in French literature.^{[citation needed]} 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 novel Stephanie, which appeared in 1913, argued in favour of arranged marriages as opposed to those founded on romantic attachments.^{[citation needed]} His work was part of the literature event in the art competition at the 1912 Summer Olympics.^[3]

He was born and died in Paris.^[4]

Works[]

References[]

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Adam, Paul" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paul Adam.

• Works by Paul Adam at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Paul Adam at Internet Archive
• Works by Paul Adam at Hathi Trust
• Signac, 1863-1935, a fully digitized exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, which contains material on Paul Adam (see index)