Biography and books of the writer Morua

2025 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2025-01-24 17:46

Famous novelist André Maurois is recognized as an unsurpassed author of biographies. But the literary activity of the French writer is very rich and versatile. He wrote biographical novels and psychological novels, love stories and travel essays, philosophical essays and fantasy stories. But no matter what genre his books belong to, the harmony of the language of the writer Maurois, clarity of thought, perfection of style, subtle irony and fascinating narration captivate readers forever.

Writer's biography

Emile Erzog, known to readers as Andre Maurois, was born into a family of industrialists in Normandy, near Rouen, in 1885. His father was the owner of a textile factory, where Andre himself later worked as an administrator. The writer's childhood was serene: we althy parents, friendly family, respect and attention from adults. Later, the author wrote that it was this that formed in him tolerance for other people's opinions, a sense of personal and civic duty.

He read a lot as a child. His love for Russian writers is especially noted,which did not die out until the last days of life. He first began to write at the Rouen Lyceum, where he studied from 1897. Among the teachers of the future writer Morois was the philosopher Alain, who had a significant impact on the worldview of the young man. Having received a licentiate degree, Andre nevertheless preferred the family business, which he had been doing for about ten years, to study. After the death of his father, Morois refused to run the family business and devoted himself entirely to his literary career.

War Years

During the First World War, the French writer Maurois served as a liaison officer, after that he worked in the editorial office of the Croix-de-Fee magazine. Morois participated in the French Resistance and served in the French army at the beginning of World War II. Thanks to the connections of his second wife, in particular to Marshal Pétain, in 1938 Maurois was elected chairman of the prestigious French Academy and held this chair for almost thirty years.

After the occupation of France by the Nazis, he moved to the United States with his family, returning to his native country in 1946. In 1947, the writer legalized his pseudonym. He died in 1967 in the suburbs of Paris and was buried in the Neuilly-sur-Seine cemetery.

Private life

In 1909, in Geneva, the writer Andre Maurois met the daughter of the Polish count Zhanna Shimkevich, who became his first wife and the mother of his two sons and daughter Michelle. The daughter became a writer, she wrote a trilogy based on many family letters. In 1918 Janine, the writer's wife, suffered a nervous breakdown and died of sepsis in 1924.

In the autumn of the same year, afterpublication of the book Dialogues sur le commandement, he was invited to dinner by Marshal Pétain. Here the writer meets Simone de Kailavet, the daughter of the playwright Gaston Armand and the granddaughter of Madame Armand, the mistress of a fashionable literary salon and the muse of the writer Anatole France. The wedding of Simone and André took place in 1926.

Literary heritage

French writer Andre Maurois left a rich literary legacy. Despite the fact that he began to write quite early, he published his novels only in 1935. Maurois collected them in the book First Stories. This also included the short story "The Birth of a Celebrity", written by the writer in 1919. The difference between semi-childish stories and this novella is striking.

He published his first book, The Silence of Colonel Bramble, based on his memoirs of the First World War, in 1918. Morois was very demanding of himself, which partly explains the success that his first novel brought. It is difficult to name a genre to which the writer would remain indifferent. His legacy includes historical research, novelized biographies, sociological essays, children's novels, psychological novels, and literary essays.

Books by André Maurois

Memories and experiences gained in the First World War formed the basis of two books by the writer Maurois: The Silence of Colonel Bramble, published in 1918, and The Speeches of Dr. O'Grady, published in 1921. In the postwar years, the writer creates psychological novels:

• Bernard Quesnay comes out in 1926;
• The Vicissitudes of Love was published in 1928;
• in 1932 the "Family Circle" saw the light;
• in 1934 - Letters to a Stranger;
• in 1946 - a collection of short stories "The Promised Land";
• in 1956 - "September Roses".

The writer's Peru owns a trilogy of the life of English romantics, later published under the general title "Romantic England". It included: the book "Ariel" published in 1923, in 1927 and 1930, respectively, "The Life of Disraeli" and "Byron" were published. Literary portraits of French writers made up four books:

• 1964 - "From La Bruyère to Proust";
• 1963 - "From Proust to Camus";
• 1965 - From Gide to Sartre;
• 1967 - From Aragon to Monterlane.

A master of the biographical genre, Morois is the author of books about great people, in which, based on accurate biographical data, he draws their living images:

• 1930 - "Byron";
• 1931 – Turgenev;
• 1935 - Voltaire;
• 1937 - "Edward VII";
• 1938 - Chateaubriand;
• 1949 - Marcel Proust;
• 1952 - George Sand;
• 1955 - "Victor Hugo";
• 1957 - Three Dumas;
• 1959 - "Alexander Fleming";
• 1961 - "The Life of Madame de Lafayette";
• 1965 - Balzac.

Writer Maurois is the author of non-fiction books: the History of England published in 1937, the History of the United States in 1943, and the History of France in 1947. The creative heritage of the writer is huge:he owns more than two hundred books and thousands of articles. The collected works of the writer were published in the early 50s in sixteen volumes.

The indisputable quality of Andre Maurois as a writer is a refined psychologism, which is clearly manifested in his works. I would like to end the article with his words, which sound like a testament to his contemporaries: “The artist is obliged to make such an incomprehensible real world understandable. Readers look for high spiritual values and new powers in books. Our responsibility is to help the reader see the HUMAN in every person.”