author
Jules François Christophe
b. 1840
A French man of letters with one foot in government service and the other in literary scholarship, he is best remembered for helping map the vast world of Balzac’s Comédie humaine. His work has remained useful to readers who want a clearer path into nineteenth-century French literature.
3 Audiobooks
Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Part 2
by Anatole Cerfberr, Jules François Christophe
Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z
by Anatole Cerfberr, Jules François Christophe
Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Part 1
by Anatole Cerfberr, Jules François Christophe
About the author
Born in Paris on May 21, 1840, Jules François Christophe was a French author and civil servant. Bibliothèque nationale de France records identify him as an author born in 1840, and a scholarly biographical notice says he entered the Ministry of War at about twenty and spent his career there, eventually rising to the rank of deputy bureau chief.
Alongside that official career, he wrote and compiled literary works. He is especially associated with Répertoire de la Comédie humaine de H. de Balzac, created with Anatole Cerfberr and introduced by Paul Bourget, a reference work designed to help readers navigate Balzac’s huge fictional universe.
The surviving public record paints him as a careful, useful kind of writer: not famous for a single novel, but valued for the way he organized, interpreted, and supported literature. Some of his works are preserved by major public-domain libraries, which has helped keep his name in circulation for modern readers.