author
Adrien Le Corbeau
1886–1932
A little-known early 20th-century novelist writing under a pen name, he is best remembered today for The Forest Giant, an unusual book later translated into English by T. E. Lawrence. His surviving works suggest a writer drawn to literary experiment and big themes like love, aging, and death.
1 Audiobook
The Forest Giant
by Adrien Le Corbeau
About the author
Born in 1886 and dead in 1932, Adrien Le Corbeau was a pen name used by the Romanian-born writer Rudolf Bernhardt. Modern references to his work are sparse, but library and bibliographic records confirm several publications under this name, including Le Gigantesque and Le couple nu.
Le Corbeau is most often connected with The Forest Giant, the English version of Le Gigantesque. That novel gained an unusual afterlife because it was translated by T. E. Lawrence, which helped preserve Le Corbeau's name even as the book itself slipped into relative obscurity.
Although not much biographical detail is easy to verify now, the surviving record points to a writer who moved in serious literary circles and published ambitious, reflective fiction. For many readers today, his appeal lies in that air of mystery: a nearly forgotten author whose work still surfaces through libraries, archives, and the rare rediscovery.