Jacques-Napoléon Faure-Biguet

Jacques-Napoléon Faure-Biguet (born October 1, 1893 in Paris , † July 18, 1954 in Le Vésinet ) was a French journalist, writer and translator. He was particularly well known for his detective novels, which he wrote under the pseudonym Jacques Decrest .

Life

Faure-Biguet, born in Paris IX. Arrondissement , attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly from 1905 . There the eleven-year-old began a lifelong friendship with his one and a half year younger classmate and writer colleague Henry de Montherlant , about whom Faure-Biguet later wrote two biographical works ( Montherlant, homme de la Renaissance , 1925, and Les enfances de Montherlant , 1941).

Faure-Biguet later worked as a journalist, including 20 years as the literary editor of L'Écho de Paris (discontinued in 1939) . Between 1924 and 1948 he wrote a number of biographies, both on writers such as Arthur de Gobineau and Maurice Barrès (who had written the foreword to Faure-Biguet's only volume of poems Poèmes 1914-1915 ) and on contemporary statesmen such as King Alexander of Yugoslavia and Major General Leclerc . At the same time he also wrote some novels such as La Fiancée morte (1925), Les Prisonniers d'Amour (1926) and Le Prisonnier des Mers (1927).

In 1933 he finally published his first detective novel, Hasard, under the pseudonym "Jacques Decrest" in Gaston Gallimards Verlag NRF (now known as Éditions Gallimard ) . Similar to Inspector Jules Maigret , invented by Georges Simenon three years earlier , Inspector Gilles, the protagonist of this and the following crime novels Faure-Biguets, was a rather elegant, cultivated and deeply philanthropic character, who stood out from the hardboiled detective Anglo-American character. Faure-Biguet's series of novels "Les enquêtes de Monsieur Gilles" grew to almost 20 volumes by the time he died, including Fumées sans feu ( The Shadow Clémentine ), written together with his wife Germaine in 1949 , for which the two won the 1951 Grand Prix de littérature received policière .

In the summer of 1954 Faure-Biguet suffered a heart attack at the age of 60 while playing ball on Sundays with his son Gilles and one of his school friends and died in the garden of his house. His last Kommissar Gilles novel ( Les complices de l'aube ), which was not yet finished at his death, was completed by Thomas Narcejac .

Works

As J.-N. Faure-Biguet

• Poèmes, 1914-1915 . S. Escoffier, Nice 1916
• La Fiancée morte . Flammarion, 1925
• Les Prisonniers d'Amour . Flammarion, 1926
• Le Prisonnier des Mers . Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Critique, 1927
• Passages de L'Oiseau . Editions Victor Attinger, 1929
• La Colonne de Nuées . Éditions de Flore, Paris 1948

Biographical works

• Maurice Barrès, his oeuvre . Paris 1924
• Montherlant, homme de la Renaissance . Plon, Paris 1925
• Gobineau «Le roman des grandes existences» . Plon, Paris 1930
• Le Roi Alexandre Ier de Yougoslavie . Plon, Paris 1936
• La petite Soeur Thérèse . Plon, Paris 1937
• Les enfances de Montherlant (de neuf a vingt ans) . Plon, Paris 1941
• Le Général Leclerc . Plon, Paris 1948

Translations from English

• Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey : Treize à la douzaine . Éditions de Flore, 1949 ( Cheaper by the Dozen , 1946)
• Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey: Six filles à marier . Éditions de Flore, 1951 ( Belles on their Toes , 1952)
• Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr .: Je suis un veinard . Editions de Flore, 1952 ( I am a lucky Guy. An autobiography , 1951)

editor

• (with André Chancerel ) Lettres de Laure Surville de Balzac 1831 - 1837 . Plon, Paris 1932

As Jacques Decrest

Commissioner Gilles series

• Hazard . NRF, Paris 1933 (Éditions de Flore, Paris 1948)
  • German translation: Hasard . Scherz, Bern 1954
• Les trois jeunes filles de Vienne . NRF, Paris 1934 (Éditions de Flore, Paris 1948)
  • German translation: Three girls from Vienna . Scherz, Bern 1955
• Les rendez-vous du dimanche soir . NRF, Paris 1935 (Éditions de Flore, Paris 1948)
• La petite fille de Bois-Colombes . NRF, Paris 1936 (Éditions de Flore, Paris 1949)
  • German translation: The eyes of Mr. Favier . Democratic Printing and Publishing Society, Linz 1951
• L'oiseau-poignard . NRF, Paris 1936 (Éditions de Flore, Paris 1950)
• La vérité du septième jour . NRF, Paris 1939 (Éditions de Flore, Paris 1951)
• Le bal de la Montagne Noire . NRF, Paris 1941 (Éditions de Flore, Paris 1953)
• La maison you skin . NRF, Paris 1942 (Éditions de Flore, Paris 1952)
• Six bras en l'air . NRF, Paris 1943 (Éditions de Flore, Paris 1954) - short stories ( Six bras en l'air ; Le bal du dernier soir ; La chambre froide ; Point d'Orgue ; La mouche d'améthyste ; Les quatre chambres )
• Le troisième oeillet . SEPE, 1948
• Les chambres sans serrures . Éditions de Flore, Paris 1949
• (with Germaine Decrest) Fumées sans feu . Éditions de Flore, Paris 1949
  • German translation: The shadow of Clémentine . Detective Club, Wiesbaden 1951
• L'homme de trois nuits . Éditions de Flore, Paris 1950
• Les pistolets solitaires . Éditions de Flore, Paris 1951
• Vous n'y êtes pour rien (short story, in: Votre Vie, Votre Bonheur , 1951)
• L'office des ténèbres . Éditions de Flore, Paris 1952
• Le tambour des dunes . Éditions de Flore, Paris 1953
• Le salon des oiseaux . Éditions de Flore, Paris 1954
• Denise on board de l'eau . Éditions de Flore, Paris 1954
• Dieu mesure le vent . Éditions de Flore, Paris 1955
• Les complices de l'aube . Éditions de Flore, Paris 1955 - completed by Thomas Narcejac

other novels

• Les Jeunes Filles perdues . Plon, Paris 1943
• La Semaine des trois Jeudis . Ed. Maréchal, Liège 1946
  • German translation: Murder on Thursday . Dörner, Düsseldorf 1950
• Prelude à la gloire . Éditions de Flore, Paris 1951 (based on the film script by Jean Bernard-Luc )

Translations from English

• Leslie Edgley : Ne craignez plus . SEPE, 1948 ( Fear No More , 1946)
• Delano Ames : César vous aurez votre crime . Fayard, 1953 ( She Shall Have Murder , 1948)
• Delano Ames: César cherche le consul . Fayard, 1954 ( Corpse Diplomatique , 1950)
• Delano Ames: Mort d'un compagnon de voyage . Fayard, 1956 ( Death of a Fellow Traveler , 1950)

The bibliography is essentially based on that of Francis Lacassin.

Web links

• Literature by and about Jacques-Napoléon Faure-Biguet in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Faure-Biguet also wrote a theater adaptation of this novel.
2. ↑ 1952 by Faure-Biguet also reworked into a radio play broadcast in the series Le Jeu du Mystère et de l'Aventure
3. ↑ Quoted from the archive link ( Memento of the original from February 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.