Synopses & Reviews
Sébastien Roch Nicolas Chamfort (1740-1794), whom Nietzsche called the "wittiest of all moralists," is now known for little more than brillian aphorisms that captivated a long line of thinkers, from Stendhal to Cioran, Schopenhauer to Camus. Yet the fascination of Chamfort's life is barely suggested by the fragments of writing that have survived him. In Claude Arnaud's captivating biography, Chamfort the libertine, playwright, journalist, and revolutionary stands revealed as the most telling emblem of his times.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 319-325) and index.
Table of Contents
Chamfort: An Introduction by Joseph Epstein
Preface
Author's Acknowledgments
Translator's Acknowledgments
1. A Negative Fairy Tale
2. Early Struggle against Anonymity
3. The Mask
4. Herculean Adonis
5. Shattered Illusions
6. Little Balloon
7. Ironclad in Repelling Evil, a Wax Mold in Accepting Good . . .
8. A Cabal against Mustapha
9. Auteuil-Passy
10. Love, and Only Love
11. Long Live Mirabeau! And Long Live the Charmer!
12. Julie
13. From Moralist to Volcano
14. Half Cockscomb, Half Poppy
15. The Palais-Royal Powderkeg
16. The Bastille
17. Normalcy
18. Shattered Dreams
19. The Académie Dismembered by a Member
20. Doing Away with the Self
21. The Monarchy's Death Throes
22. A Bad Dream
23. His Own Executioner
24. . . . From the Dead
25. Nietzsche-Chamfort
Appendixes
1. The Theft of Chamfort's Manuscripts
2. Portraits of Chamfort
3. Unanthologized Aphorisms and Anecdotes
4. A Chamfort Sampler
Illustrations
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Manuscripts
Published Articles and Essays
Principal Editions of Chamfort's Works
General Source Material
Contemporary Publications
Contemporary Periodicals
Biographies of Chamfort
Index