author
André Lemoyne
1822–1907
A 19th-century French poet and novelist, he moved between literary ambition and working life in the printing world before earning recognition from the Académie française. His verse is often linked with the broader Parnassian era, and his name even appears in Rimbaud’s famous “Letter of the Seer.”
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About the author
Born in Saint-Jean-d’Angély in 1822 and dying there in 1907, André Lemoyne was a French poet and novelist. He studied law and was admitted to the Paris bar in 1847, but his career ranged much more widely: he worked as a typographer, proofreader, and later in advertising for the Didot publishing house before becoming librarian at the École des arts décoratifs.
Lemoyne built a steady literary reputation over the second half of the 19th century. The French Academy awarded him several prizes across his career, showing that he was more than a minor name of his time. He is also remembered for being mentioned by Arthur Rimbaud among contemporary poets in the celebrated letter now known as the “Letter of the Seer.”
Today, he is usually seen as one of those writers who help fill out the texture of French poetry beyond the biggest household names: a working man of letters, deeply rooted in the literary culture of his century, with poetry and prose that kept him in print long after his first success.