Gaston Chérau (6 November 1872 – 20 April 1937) was a French man of letters and journalist.
Biography
The son of an industrialist, Gaston Chérau died in Boston during a lecture tour. A journalist and chronicler, he regularly gave the press his impressions of travel.
In 1911, he traveled through Tripolitania during the Italo-Turkish War on behalf of Le Matin newspaper.
In 1914, he was a war reporter for the newspaper L'Illustration in Belgium and the North of France.
A fertile novelist of the province, his pen is very influenced by the Berry where he had family roots, stayed a part of his childhood, and where he returned assiduously on vacation in a second home until the end of his life.
He was elected a member of the Académie Goncourt in 1926.
He was also interested in cinema and wrote the dialogues of the film Les Deux mondes (1930) directed by Ewald Andreas Dupont.
Literary work
He is the author of about forty novels.
1901: Les grandes époques de M. Thébault, Chamuel; Justin Clairbois remained in the state of manuscript 1921: Valentine Pacquault is at the same time his greatest success and his most famous work Sa destinée, novel Concorde !… 6 février 1934 1935: Le Pimpet, illustrated tale by , Paris, Delagrave 1934: Le pays qui a perdu son âme, novel, Paris, Ferenczi 1930: Le Flambeau des Riffault, novel, Paris, Calmann-Lévy, Paris, Fasquelle 1929: Apprends-moi à être amoureuse, tales, Ferenczi 1930: La volupté du mal, novel, Ferenczi 1931: Les cercles du printemps, tales, Ferenczi La maison du quai, novel L'enfant du pays, novel (Éd. L'Illustration, revue La Petite Illustration, four paperbacks: n° 561, 23 January 1932; n° 562, 30 January 1932; n° 563, 6 February 1932 ; n° 564, 13 February 1932 ; illustrations by La voix de Werther, tales 1932: Celui du Bois Jacqueline, novel, Ferenczi Jacques Petitpont, novel for youth La saison balnéaire de M. Thebault, novel, Sevin et Rey 1903: Monseigneur voyage, novel, Paris, Ollendorf, Stock, 1910, Flammarion, 1920, 1921, 1927, 1930, 1948, 1967, then Ferenczi, 1931); The title character may have been inspired by Charles-Amable de La Tour d'Auvergne Lauraguais (1826–1879) archbishop of Bourges quoted at his death in a letter from Maurice Sand; The planned sequel, entitled L'Apprenti (1902?) was not published 1913: Le Monstre, tales, Stock, 1913 1906: Champi-Tortu, novel, Olendorff, 1906 1910: La prison de verre, sequel to Champi-Tortu, Calmann-Lévy 1913: , novel, Calmann-Lévy 1914: , sequel to L'Oiseau de proie, Plon 1929: Fra Camboulive, novel, Flammarion 1927: Valentine Pacquault, novel (Paris, Mornay - Les Beaux Livres, illustrations by Edelman) 1923: La Despélouquéro, tales, Plon La Maison de Patrice Perrier, novel 1926: Le vent du destin, tales, Plon 1927: L'égarée sur la route, novel, Ferenczi L'ombre du maître, novel L'enlèvement de la princesse, novel 1934: Chasses et plein air en France, short stories, Stock 1937: Séverin Dunastier, novel, Paris, Albin Michel
A generous epicurean, he prefaced the Histoire du cognac by (Stock, 1935), an archeologist and writer from an old family of merchants in brandy from Jarnac, whose younger brother Jacques (1874–1953), author among others of Portraits d'oiseaux (Stock, 1938 and 1952) was the brother-in-law of the writer Jacques Boutelleau (1884–1968), called Jacques Chardonne.
He wrote a number of works for children such as Jacques Petitpont, roi de Madagascar (J. Ferenczi, 1928, ill. d'Avelot), L'enlèvement de la princesse (Hachette, 1934, ill. André Pécoud ) or Contes et nouvelles de Gascogne (Bibliothèque Nelson illustrée, 1938, ill. Georges Dutriac).
Georges Bernanos described him as a "Maupassant of sub-prefecture", because he had not voted for the Voyage au bout de la nuit by Louis-Ferdinand Céline at the 1932 edition of the prix Goncourt (Le Figaro, 13 December 1932).
(Léon Daudet, L’Action française, 22 April 1937).