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The French Invention

Montaigne invents the essay and makes doubt a method. Moliere perfects comedy. Racine perfects tragedy. Voltaire laughs at everything. Laclos weaponises letters. Hugo fills a thousand pages with justice and mercy. Flaubert makes every sentence a moral act. Baudelaire finds beauty in the gutter. Proust finds eternity in a teacup. Celine screams. Sartre and Camus sort through the wreckage of meaning. Beauvoir refuses to be the second anything. Beckett sits in the dark and waits. Duras strips love to the bone.

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  1. 1
    EssaysMichel de Montaigne (1580)
  2. 2
    The MisanthropeMolière (1666)
  3. 3
    PhèdreJean Racine (1677)
  4. 4
    CandideVoltaire (1759)
  5. 5
    Dangerous LiaisonsPierre Choderlos de Laclos (1782)
  6. 6
    Les MisérablesVictor Hugo (1862)
  7. 7
    Madame BovaryGustave Flaubert (1857)
  8. 8
    The Flowers of EvilCharles Baudelaire (1857)
  9. 9
    In Search of Lost TimeMarcel Proust (1927)
  10. 10
    Journey to the End of the NightLouis-Ferdinand Céline (1932)
  11. 11
    NauseaJean-Paul Sartre (1938)
  12. 12
    The StrangerAlbert Camus (1942)
  13. 13
    The Myth of SisyphusAlbert Camus (1942)
  14. 14
    The PlagueAlbert Camus (1947)
  15. 15
    The Second SexSimone de Beauvoir (1949)
  16. 16
    Waiting for GodotSamuel Beckett (1953)
  17. 17
    The LoverMarguerite Duras (1984)