Renée Mauperin

EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT Renée Mauperin Edmond de Goncourt, born at Nancy on May 26, 1822, and his brother Jules, born in Paris on December 17, 1830, were primarily artists, who, while wandering over France, knapsack on back, discovered that their note-books also made them writers. In 1850 they entered upon a literary partnership which only finished with the death of the younger brother on June 20, 1870. Their earliest literary endeavours consisted of a series of historical studies dealing with the France of the second half of the eighteenth century. It was not until 1860, with the publication of their first novel, "Les Hommes de Lettres," that they discovered their true bent lay in fiction. "Renée Mauperin," which is, perhaps, the best known of their books, was published in 1864.