"[...]Les Amoureuses (1858). Thus at the age of eighteen did Daudet make his debut in the literary world. The first rung was reached in the ladder of fame, and success was not long in coming. He became a regular contributor to the Figaro. One of his poems, Les Frunes, was recited at the Tuileries before the Empress Eugénie. She liked it so much that she was led to inquire who the author was. On being told he was a poor man starving in a garret, she at once requested the Duc de Moray, President of the Corps Législatif, to offer him a post as secretary in his department, a sinecure, with a handsome salary attached. This gave him plenty of time to devote to literature, but hard work soon told on so delicate a frame. In 1861 he broke down owing to[...]".

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Little What's-His-Name (Le Petit Chose) - Alphonse Daudet's (1840-1897) first published, though not his first written, novel - appeared in 1868. The first part was composed in that Southern France it describes so charmingly; its first chapters form one of the most touching of autobiographies. In the second part Daudet has to tell of the struggles of an idealistic young poet in the selfish, devouring whirlpool of Paris. The whole book seems to bear the impress of the circumstances under which it was written. It is full of the milk of human kindness. --- When Daudet wrote Le Petit Chose in his early manhood, he succeeded in producing one of the most delightfully idyllic of his works, one that will probably continue to be read as long as any of the more powerful novels of his prime. It is one of the most perfect representations in literature of childhood's hopes and fears and of youth's aspirations and defeats. It is perfect because it is real. --- Enjoy to the full one of the purest and most exquisite stories of youthful experience to be found in French or in any other literature. (W. P. Trent)