Erckmann Chatrian
Erckmann-Chatrian was the name used by French authors mile Erckmann (1822-1899) and Alexandre Chatrian (1826-1890), nearly all of whose works were jointly written. Both Erckmann and Chatrian were born in the dpartement of Moselle, in the Lorraine region in the extreme north-east of France. They specialised in military fiction and ghost stories in a rustic mode, applying to the Vosges mountain range and the Alsace-Lorraine region techniques inspired by story-tellers from the Black Forest. Life-long friends who first met in the spring of 1847, they finally quarreled during the mid-1880s, after they did not produce any more stories jointly. During 1890 Chatrian died, and Erckmann wrote a few pieces under his own name. Tales of supernatural horror by the duo that are famous in English include "The Wild Huntsman" (tr. 1871), "The Man-Wolf" (tr. 1876) and "The Crab Spider. " These stories received praise from the renowned English ghost story writer, M. R. James. Partly as a result of their republicanism, they were praised by Victor Hugo and mile Zola, and fiercely attacked in the pages of Le Figaro. Gaining popularity from 1859 for their nationalistic, anti-militaristic and anti-German sentiments, they were well-selling authors but had trouble with political censorship throughout their careers. Generally the novels were written by Erckmann, and the plays mostly by Chatrian. A festival in their honour is held every summer in the town of Erckmann's birth, Phalsbourg (German Pfalzburg), which also contains a military museum exhibiting editions of their works.
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