Book Description

Excerpt from At the Sign of the Reine Pedauque The novel of which the following pages are a translation was published in 1893, the author's forty-ninth year, and comes more or less midway in the chronological list of his works. It thus marks the flood tide of his genius, when his imaginative power at its brightest came into conjunction with the full ripeness of his scholarship. It is, perhaps, the most characteristic example of that elusive point of view which makes for the magic of Anatole France. No writer is more personal. No writer views human affairs from a more impersonal standpoint. He hovers over the world like a disembodied spirit, wise with the learning of all times and with the knowledge of all hearts that have beaten, yet not so serene and unfleshly as not to have preserved a certain tricksiness, a capacity for pucklish laughter which echoes through his pages and haunts the ear when the covers of the book are closed. At the same time he appears unmistakably before you in human guise, speaking to you face to face, in human tones. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."