Reading Order
Contemporary HistoryL'Histoire contemporaine Reading Order
L'Histoire contemporaine (Contemporary History, 1897-1901) by Anatole France is the most important French political novel of the Dreyfus era, a four-volume series — L'Orme du mail (1897), Le Mannequin d'osier (1897), L'Anneau d'améthyste (1899), and M. Bergeret à Paris (1901) — following the career of M. Bergeret, a Latin professor in a provincial French university town, as he observes the political, ecclesiastical, and social life of the Third Republic before and during the Dreyfus Affair. The series is France's most sustained political satire: the provincial university town is a microcosm of French society, and the intrigues between the local clergy, the Republican prefect, the conservative military, and the academic establishment reproduce in miniature the national conflicts that the Dreyfus Affair brought to crisis. Bergeret is France's most fully realized character: a scholarly man of independent intelligence and gentle irony who cannot help observing with painful clarity the vanity, self-deception, and bad faith of the institutions and individuals around him. The final volume, M. Bergeret à Paris, follows Bergeret to the capital as the Affair reaches its climax, and France's direct engagement with the Affair (he was a prominent Dreyfusard) gives the final volume a political urgency that the earlier volumes' small-town ironies had deliberately avoided.
Where to start
Start with L'Orme du mail, the first volume — it establishes the character of Bergeret and the provincial setting that the series requires. The four volumes are most rewarding read in order, but M. Bergeret à Paris can stand alone for readers who want France's direct engagement with the Dreyfus Affair.
Complete Contemporary History Book List
- 1Buy
L'Orme du mail
Anatole France·1897·The first volume — Bergeret in his provincial town, observing the local politics of church, prefect, and academy. - 2Buy
Le Mannequin d'osier
Anatole France·1897·The second volume — the introduction of Bergeret's domestic crisis (the wicker mannequin episode) alongside the intensifying political tensions. - 3Buy
L'Anneau d'améthyste
Anatole France·1899·The third volume — the Dreyfus Affair begins to intrude directly on provincial life, and Bergeret takes his Dreyfusard position. - 4Buy
M. Bergeret à Paris
Anatole France·1901·The fourth and final volume — Bergeret in Paris at the height of the Affair, France's most direct fictional engagement with the Dreyfus crisis.
Contemporary History — Frequently Asked Questions
What should I read if I liked L'Histoire contemporaine by Anatole France?
Readers who respond to L'Histoire contemporaine will find the most direct continuation in France's other political novels: L'Île des pingouins (1908) for the historical satire of French political life from the medieval period through the Dreyfus Affair, and Les Dieux ont soif (1912) for the historical novel of revolutionary France. For the provincial novel as political satire, Balzac's Les Illusions perdues and Zola's Son Excellence Eugène Rougon are the essential French predecessors.
What is the Dreyfus Affair and why is it important for Anatole France?
The Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906) was the defining political crisis of the French Third Republic: Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer, was falsely convicted of treason in 1894 and sent to Devil's Island. The affair divided France between Dreyfusards (who argued for Dreyfus's innocence and for the supremacy of justice over national interest) and anti-Dreyfusards (who argued that military honor and national solidarity required the conviction be upheld). Anatole France was a prominent Dreyfusard — he signed the Manifesto of the Intellectuals in January 1898, alongside Zola's J'accuse letter. L'Histoire contemporaine and L'Île des pingouins are both profoundly shaped by France's experience of the Affair.
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