Petrus Borel

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Petrus Borel, (26 June 1809 - 14 July 1859) was a French writer of the Romantic movement.

Born Joseph-Pierre Borel dHauterive at Lyon, the 12 of 14 children of an ironmonger, he studied architecture in Paris but abandoned it for literature. Nicknamed le Lycanthrope ("wolfman"), and the center of the circle of Bohemians in Paris, he was noted for extravagant and eccentric writing, foreshadowing Surrealism. He was not commercially successful though, and eventually was found a minor civil service post by his friends, including Theophile Gautier.

He died at Mostaganem in Algeria.

He was the subject of a biography by Enid Starkie, Petrus Borel: The Lycanthrope (1954) .