Paul-Jean Toulet

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Paul-Jean Toulet

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Paul-Jean Toulet (1867 - 1920) was a French poet. He was a descendant of Charlotte Corday, and son of a wealthy man living in Mauritius. He was most famous for his opus describing La vie parisienne.

In France, he is famous for a book of verse, Les Contrerimes, published after he was dead, but many pieces of it were incorporated in his novels, or published in literary magazines, from 1910 to 1914. He was also taken as a model by a minor poetic movement, the "fantaisists". He said: "When two men who have read Jean Paul Toulet meet (usually in a bar), the immediately imagine it´s a certain form of aristocracy." (Bergier, Pauwels, The Morning of the Magicians, II)

In 1897, Toulet got a copy of The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen from a friend and he translated it the following year. It was finally published in Le Plume in 1901 and then again by it, yet went unnoticed, except for Maeterlinck´s reaction "... combining the traditional and scientific fantastic genres, it hits both our memories and hopes".

Toulets own novel Pan du Paur´s name was inspired by Machen. Published in 1898 by Simonis Empris, it wasn't successful either. In 1918, however, it was published again in Éditions du Divan by Toulet's admirer Henri Martineau who also found very interesting correspondence between the two authors.