ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN, the joint names of two French writers whose collaboration made their work that of, so to speak, one personality. EMILE ERCKMANN (1822-1899) was born on the 20th of May 1822 at Phalsbourg, and LOUIS GRATIEN CHARLES ALEXANDRE CHATRIAN (1826-1890) on the 18th of December 1826 at Soldatenthal, Lorraine. In 1847 they began to write together, and continued doing so till 1889. Chatrian died in 1890 at Villemomble near Paris, and Erckmann at Luneville in 1899. The list of their publications is a long one, ranging from the _Histoires et contes fantastiques_ (1849; reprinted from the _Democrate du Rhin_), _L'Illustre Docteur Matheus_ (1859), _Madame Therese_ (1863), _L'Ami Fritz_ (1864), _Histoire d'un conscrit de 1813_ (1864), _Waterloo_ (1865), _Le Blocus_ (1867), _Histoire d'un paysan_ (4 vols., 1868-1870), _L'Histoire du plebiscite_ (1872), to _Le Grand-pere Lebigue_ (1880); besides dramas like _Le Juif polonais_ (1869) and _Les Rantzau_ (1882). Without any special literary claim, their stories are distinguished by simplicity and genuine descriptive power, particularly in the battle scenes and in connexion with Alsatian peasant life. They are marked by a genuine democratic spirit, and by real patriotism, which developed after 1870 into hatred of the Germans. The authors attacked militarism by depicting the horrors of war in the plainest terms. See also J. Claretie, _Erckmann-Chatrian_ (1883), in the series of "Celebrites contemporaines." ERDELYI, JANOS (1814-1868), Hungarian poet and author, was born in 1814 at Kapos, in the county of Ungvar, and educated at the Protestant college of Sarospatak. In 1833 he removed to Pest, where he was, in 1839, elected member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His literary fame was made by his collection of Hungarian national poems and folk-tales, _Magyar Nepkoltesi Gyujtemeny, Nepdalok es Mondak_ (Pest, 1846-1847). This work, published by the Kisfaludy Society, was supplemented by a dissertation upon Hungarian national poetry, afterwards partially translated into German by Stier (Berlin, 1851). Erdelyi also compiled for the Kisfaludy Society an extensive collection of Hungarian proverbs--_Magyar Kozmondasok konyve_ (Pest, 1851),--and was for some time editor of the _Szepirodalmi Szemle_ (_Review of Polite Literature_). In 1848 he was appointed director of the national theatre at Pest; but after 1849 he resided at his native town. He died on the 23rd of January 1868. A collection of folklore was published the year after his death, entitled _A Nep Kolteszete nepdalok, nepmesek es kozmondasok_ (Pest, 1869). This work contains 300 national songs, 19 folk-tales and 7362 Hungarian proverbs.