author
Augustin Filon
1841–1916
A French man of letters with a strong feel for both literature and public life, he wrote fiction, criticism, and lively books about English politics, art, and culture. His unusual closeness to the household of Napoleon III also gave his memoirs a special firsthand quality.
2 Audiobooks
The English Stage: Being an Account of the Victorian Drama
by Augustin Filon
Garrick's Pupil
by Augustin Filon
About the author
Born in Paris in 1841, Augustin Filon was the son of the historian Charles Auguste Désiré Filon. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure and went on to become a professor of rhetoric, building a career that moved easily between teaching, journalism, criticism, and creative writing.
Filon is remembered as a versatile French author who wrote novels as well as books and articles on contemporary English politics, art, and literature. He also served as tutor to the Prince Imperial, a role that took him to England and helped shape the firsthand recollections and historical writings he later became known for.
His work often joined literary insight with a close observer’s eye for public affairs. Augustin Filon died in 1916, leaving behind a body of writing that connects French literary culture with the political and intellectual life of Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.