KOCK, CHARLES PAUL DE (1793-1871)

This article appears in Volume V15, Page 885 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: KHA-KRI

KOCK, CHARLES PAUL DE (1793-1871) , French novelist, was born at Passy on the 21st of May 1793. He was a posthumous child, his father, a hanker of Dutch extraction, having been a victim of the Terror. Paul de Kock began

life

LIFE

as a banker's clerk. For the most

part

PART

he resided on the Boulevard St Martin, and was one of the most inveterate of Parisians. He died in Paris on the 27th of

April

APRIL

1871. He began to write for the stage very early, and composed many operatic libretti. His first novel, L'Enf ant de ma femme (1811), was published at his own expense. In 182o he began his

long

LONG, GEORGE (1800-1879)
LONG, JOHN DAVIS (1838– )

and successful

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of novels dealing with Parisian

life

LIFE

with Georgette, ou la mere du
Tabellion. His period of greatest and most successful activity was the Restoration and the early days of Louis Philippe. He was relatively less popular in France itself than abroad, where he was considered as the

special

SPECIAL

painter of life in Paris. Major Pendennis's remark that he had read nothing of the novel kind for thirty years except Paul de Kock, " who certainly made him laugh," is likely to remain one of the most durable of his testimonials, and may be classed with the legendary question of a foreign sovereign to a Frenchman who was paying his respects, "

Vous

VOUS

venez de Paris et

vous

VOUS

devez savoir des nouvelles. Comment se porte Paul de Kock?" The disappearance of the grisette and of the cheap dissipation described by Henri Murger practically made Paul de Kock obsolete. But to the student of manners his

portraiture

PORTRAITURE

of low and middle class life in the first half of the 19th century at Paris still has its value.
The works of Paul de Kock are very numerous. With the exception of a few not very felicitous excursions into historical romance and some miscellaneous works of which his share in La Grande Dille, Paris (1842), is the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

, they are all stories of middle-class Parisian life, of guinguettes and cabarets and equivocal adventures of one sort or another. The most famous are Andre le Savoyard (1825) and Le Barbier de Paris (1826).
His Memoires were published in 1893. See also Th. Trimm, La Vie de Charles Paul de Kock (1893).

End of Article: KOCK, CHARLES PAUL DE (1793-1871)

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/KHA_KRI/KOCK_CHARLES_PAUL_DE_1793_1871.html">
KOCK, CHARLES PAUL DE (1793-1871)
</a>

(Previous)
KOCH, ROBERT (18431910)

(Next)
KODAIKANAL

JCSM was founded in 1997 and exists to help the community and bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that were sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email