Michel Zévaco

Zévaco, Michel (1860-1918). The last author to achieve fame as writer of romans-feuilletons, Zévaco shared characteristics with his heroes. Seducer, soldier, libertarian, feminist, he published a volume of military sketches, Le Boute-Charge (1888), but earned notoriety, and went to prison, for his revolutionary socialist journalism in La Tribune libre and L'Égalité, where his first feuilleton was serialized in 1889. His reputation rests on the Pardaillan cycle, serialized from 1902 onwards, appearing in volumes from 1907: Les Pardaillan, L'Epopée d'Amour, followed by others, with titles and volumes varying in later editions. A hero of the 16th c., Pardaillan is in many aspects a 19th-c. libertarian.

[Stephen Noreiko]