author
Jacques Morel
1867–1949
Best known for the prize-winning novel Feuilles mortes, this French writer published under a pen name and built a quiet reputation for sensitive, psychologically observant fiction. Behind that name was Madeleine Paule Gorges Pottier, a Paris-born author whose work appeared in the early 20th century.
1 Audiobook
Feuilles mortes
by Jacques Morel
About the author
Writing as Jacques Morel, Madeleine Paule Gorges Pottier was a French novelist born in Paris on March 11, 1867, and she died there on December 10, 1949. She is remembered above all as the winner of the 1912 Prix Femina for Feuilles mortes, a novel that helped secure her place in French literary life.
She published under a masculine pseudonym, a choice that was not unusual for women writers of her era. Sources also identify her as the wife of archaeologist Edmond Pottier, and her fiction is generally noted for its emotional sensitivity and close attention to character.
Although she is not widely known today, Jacques Morel remains an interesting figure for readers drawn to early 20th-century French literature, especially novels centered on inner life, memory, and social feeling.