Pierre Benoit (novelist)

Pierre Benoit by Roubier

Pierre Benoit on his reception at the Académie Française in 1932

Pierre Benoit (16 July 1886 – 3 March 1962) was a French novelist, screenwriter and member of the Académie française. He is perhaps most known for his second novel L'Atlantide (1919) that has been filmed a variety of times.

Biography

Early life and education

Pierre Benoit was born in Albi (southern France), the son of a French soldier, Gabriel Benoît, and his wife Claire-Eugénie Fraisse. He accompanied his father, who had been posted to North Africa from 1887 onwards (in Tunisia and then in Algeria, where he continued his studies at the Grand Lycée d'Alger).

In 1907, after completing his military service (still in Algeria), he went to Montpellier, where he prepared for a double degree in literature and law, then to Sceaux, where he became a boarding school teacher.

It was during this period that he discovered Charles Maurras and Maurice Barrès, who became, and remained, his masters of thought.

Literary beginnings

After obtaining a degree in literature, he narrowly failed the agrégation in 1910 but was accepted in the competitive examination for the Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts: he was appointed agent in the under-secretariat for Fine Arts, then librarian in the Ministry of Public Instruction. At the same time, he published his first poems, for which he received a prize from the Société des gens de lettres. On the other hand, he would be less happy with the publication of his poetry collection Diadumène (1914): in ten years, only five copies were sold — to a single buyer, the patron André Germain, director of the poetic review Le Double Bouquet.

Mobilized at the beginning of World War I, Benoit fell seriously ill after the battle of Charleroi: he spent several months in hospital, then was demobilized. This experience at the front was sufficiently traumatic, however, to transform the young man into a convinced pacifist who, in a letter he sent to his mother in 1914, confided his enthusiasm at the idea of participating in a "holy war".

After the armistice, he reunited with his pre-war companions: Francis Carco, Roland Dorgelès and Pierre Mac Orlan, with whom he founded an association: "Le Bassin de Radoub" (Henri Béraud was also a member), which proposed to reward the worst book of the year. The first prize winner was awarded a train ticket to his native land accompanied by a letter asking him never to return. In 1919, the work chosen unanimously was a collective one: the Treaty of Versailles.

In addition, always heavily influenced by Maurrasian ideas and therefore close to the political circles that gravitated around the Action Française, Pierre Benoit gave his full support to Henri Massis's manifesto "For a Party of Intelligence".

His first novel, Koenigsmark, was published in 1918; L'Atlantide was published the next year and was awarded the Grand Prize of the Académie française. Benoit became a member of the Académie in 1931.

Despite his success, Benoit was bored in his position as librarian at the Ministry of Public Instruction and was therefore with enthusiasm that he accepted in 1923 the proposal of the daily Le Journal to travel to Turkey as a special envoy, which gave him the opportunity to leave the civil service. Crossing Anatolia at war, he was granted an interview with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Ankara. Benoit later visited other nations.

During the Nazi Occupation of France, Benoît joined the "Groupe Collaboration", a pro-Nazi arts group whose other members included Abel Bonnard, Georges Claude and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. This led him to be arrested in September 1944; he was eventually released after six months, but his work remained on the "blacklist" of French Nazi collaborators for several years afterwards.

He attempted to resign from the Académie Française in 1959 in protest over their refusal to accept the writer Paul Morand after his application was vetoed by General Charles DeGaulle.

Late in his life, Benoit gave a series of interviews with the French writer Paul Guimard. He died in March 1962 in Ciboure.

Style of novels

Each of Benoi's novels consist of exactly 227 pages and have the heroine's name begin with the letter "A".

Works

Novels

• Koenigsmark (The Secret Spring; 1918)
• L'Atlantide (Atlantida; 1919)
• Pour don Carlos (1920)
• Le Lac Salé (1921)
• La Chaussée des Géants (The Giant's Causeway; 1922)
• L'Oublié (The Forgotten Man; 1922)
• Mademoiselle de La Ferté (1923)
• Le Roman des Quatre (1923; with Paul Bourget, Henri Duvernois and Gérard d'Houville)
• La Châtelaine du Liban (Lebanon's Lady of the Manor; 1924)
• Le Puits de Jacob (Jacob's Well; 1925)
• Le Roman des Quatre: Micheline et l'Amour (1926; with Paul Bourget, Henri Duvernois and Gérard d'Houville)
• Alberte (1926)
• Le Roi Lépreux (The Leper King; 1927)
• Axelle (1928)
• Erromango (1929)
• Le Soleil de Minuit (The Midnight Sun; 1930)
• Le Déjeuner de Sousceyrac (1931)
• L'Île Verte (1932)
• Fort-de-France (1933)
• Cavalier 6 (1933; sequel to L'Oublié)
• Monsieur de la Ferté (1934)
• Boissière (1935)
• La Dame de l'Ouest (1936)
• Saint-Jean d'Acre (1936)
• L'Homme qui était trop grand (The Man Who Was Too Tall; with Claude Farrère, 1936)
• Les Compagnons d'Ulysse (1937)
• Bethsabée (1938)
• Notre-Dame-de-Tortose (1939)
• Les Environs d'Aden (1940)
• Le Désert de Gobi (1941)
• Lunegarde (Moonkeep; 1942)
• Seigneur, j'ai tout Prévu... (1943)
• L'Oiseau des Ruines (Bird of the Ruins; 1947)
• Jamrose (1948)
• Aïno (1948)
• Le Casino de Barbazan (1949)
• Les Plaisirs du Voyage (1950)
• Les Agriates (1950)
• Le Prêtre Jean (1952)
• La Toison d'or (1953)
• Villeperdue (Lost City; 1954)
• Feux d'Artifice à Zanzibar (1955)
• Fabrice (1956)
• Montsalvat (1957)
• La Sainte Vehme (The Holy Vehme; illustrated by Jean Dries, 1958)
• Flamarens (1959)
• Le Commandeur (1960)
• Les Amours Mortes (1961)
• Aréthuse (posthumous unfinished work; 1963)

Poetry

• Diadumène (1914)
• Les Suppliantes (1920)

Translated into English

• Atlantida (1920)
• The Secret Spring (1920; first English edition entitled Count Philip: A Romance, 1920; rpt. as Konigsmark: A Romance, 1924)
• For Don Carlos: A Romance (1921)
• Salt Lake: A Novel (1922)
• The Lady of Lebanon (1925)
• Jacob's Well (1926)
• Island Spell (1929)
• Axelle (1930)

Filmography

• L'Atlantide, directed by Jacques Feyder (France, 1921, based on the novel Atlantida)
• Koenigsmark, directed by Léonce Perret (France, 1923, based on the novel Koenigsmark)
• Le Puits de Jacob, directed by Edward José (France, 1925, based on the novel Le Puits de Jacob)
• La Chaussée des géants, directed by Robert Boudrioz and Jean Durand (France, 1926, based on the novel La Chaussée des géants)
• The Midnight Sun, directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki (1926, based on the novel Le Soleil de minuit)
• Le Soleil de minuit, directed by Richard Garrick and Jean Legrand (France, 1926, based on the novel Le Soleil de minuit)
• The Lady of Lebanon, directed by Marco de Gastyne (France, 1926, based on the novel La Châtelaine du Liban)
• Princesse Mandane, directed by Germaine Dulac (France, 1928, based on the novel L'Oublié)
• Surrender, directed by William K. Howard (1931, based on the novel Axelle)
• L'Atlantide, directed by G. W. Pabst (French-language version, 1932, based on the novel Atlantida)
  • Die Herrin von Atlantis, directed by G. W. Pabst (German-language version, 1932, based on the novel Atlantida)
  • The Mistress of Atlantis, directed by G. W. Pabst (English-language version, 1932, based on the novel Atlantida)
• The Lady of Lebanon, directed by Jean Epstein (France, 1934, based on the novel La Châtelaine du Liban)
• Koenigsmark, directed by Maurice Tourneur (France-UK, 1935, based on the novel Koenigsmark)
• Boissière, directed by Fernand Rivers (France, 1937, based on the novel Boissière)
• Angélica, directed by Jean Choux (France, 1939, based on the novel Les Compagnons d'Ulysse)
• Girl of the Golden West, directed by Carl Koch (Italy, 1942, based on the novel La Dame de l'Ouest)
• Le Soleil de minuit, directed by Bernard Roland (France, 1943, based on the novel Le Soleil de minuit)
• Lunegarde, directed by Marc Allégret (France, 1946, based on the novel Lunegarde)
• Dizziness, directed by Antonio Momplet (Mexico, 1946, based on the novel Alberte)
• Bethsabée, directed by Léonide Moguy (France, 1947, based on the novel Bethsabée)
• Siren of Atlantis, directed by Gregg G. Tallas (1949, based on the novel Atlantida)
• Mademoiselle de La Ferté, directed by Roger Dallier (France, 1949, based on the novel Mademoiselle de La Ferté)
• Koenigsmark, directed by Solange Térac (France, 1953, based on the novel Koenigsmark)
• C'est arrivé à Aden, directed by Michel Boisrond (France, 1956, based on the novel Les Environs d'Aden)
• The Lebanese Mission, directed by Richard Pottier (France, 1956, based on the novel La Châtelaine du Liban)
• Journey Beneath the Desert, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (Italy-France, 1961, based on the novel Atlantida)
• L'Atlantide (1972 film), directed by Jean Kerchbron (a 1972 French made for television film based on the novel Atlantida)
• L'Atlantide, directed by Bob Swaim (France-Italy, 1992, based on the novel Atlantida)

Screenwriter

• 1925: The Night Watch (dir. Marcel Silver)
• 1934: Les Nuits moscovites (dir. Alexis Granowsky)
• 1935: Moscow Nights (dir. Anthony Asquith)
• 1936: Taras Bulba (dir. Alexis Granowsky)
• 1943: Colonel Chabert (dir. René Le Hénaff)
• 1943: Vautrin (dir. Pierre Billon)

Further reading

• Van den Bosch, Firmin (1944). Vagabondages littéraires. Bruxelles: Durendal/Paris: P. Lethielleux.

External links

• Works by Pierre Benoit at Hathi Trust
• Works by Pierre Benoit at Unz.com
• Works by Pierre Benoît at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Pierre Benoit at Faded Page (Canada)