Marcel Prévost

Marcel Prévost graduated from the École polytechnique in Paris. He then worked as an engineer in a tobacco factory before joining the ministerial service. In 1881, he started publishing novellas in the journal Le Clairon. In 1890, he gave up his position as a public servant and devoted himself to literature.

After his first novels dealing with provincial life, he began to explore the subject for which he became famous: the nature of women, viewed exclusively from the male point of view. In 1894, success came with Les Demi-vierges, his most celebrated novel. It describes the effects that Parisian city life and modern education and society can have on young women. The novel was subsequently turned into a play and premiered successfully in 1895. The term “demi-vierge” (“half-virgin”) entered the common speech to describe a permissive yet virginal girl.

In the following years, Prévost published a couple of psychological novels about morality and society. La plus faible (1904), a play in four acts was performed with great success at the Comédie-Française. Monsieur et Madame Moloch (1906), was a light-hearted satire on the German character. The combination of mysticism and eroticism in Retraite ardente (1927) stirred protests from the Catholic Church. From 1922-39 he edited the magazine Revue de France.

In 1909, Prévost was elected as a member of the Académie française. From 1899-1900, and again from 1903-06, he was president of the authors’ association “Société des gens de lettres”.