Anatole France (Thibault, Jacques Anatole), Paris, born 1844; died 1924: “in recognition of his splendid activity as an author,--an activity marked by noble style, large-hearted humanity, charm and French _esprit_.”[136] When Anatole France, who had been the Nobel prize winner of 1921, died in the autumn of 1924, there was scarcely a journal of standing in any country that did not summarize his influence upon letters and life in France and other nations. Distinctly Parisian in traits and expression, this writer was broadly international in his analysis of humanity, in his genial mockery of life, in his dreamy idealism which coexisted with a ruthless realism. He had lived the full span of life--and _lived_ it to the end of his eighty years. He had written in moods of biting satire and emotional intensity; he had found themes in history, current topics, and the future. As he neared the close of his life, the emphasis was more upon the genial, kindly aspects of humanity; his later literary expressions were memories of his boyhood and youth, the completion of that cycle of intuitive memories that began with _My Friend’s Book_ (1885) and _Pierre Nozière_, and ended with _Little Pierre_ and _The Bloom of Life_ (1922). [Illustration: _Copyright, 1925, by J. B. Lippincott Company._ _Photograph by Choumoff, Paris_ ANATOLE FRANCE] Between these volumes of imaginative and reminiscent delights, which form a better biography of his mind and spirit than has otherwise been written, Anatole France produced such diverse literary types, such books of ironic and cynical flavor as _The Red Lily_, _Thaïs_, _The Revolt of the Angels_, _The Amethyst Ring_, _At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque_, _Crainquebille_, _The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife_, _The Elm Tree on the Mall_, _Penguin Island_, _The Gods Are Athirst_, _The Life of Jeanne d’Arc_, _The Human Comedy_, and volumes of critical essays and poems. To the books of more reminiscent flavor, with wistful idealism, he was indebted, especially, for the honor of the Nobel prize. These had already won the tributes--and critical estimates--of readers of European countries, of Canada, United States and South America. Few writers have had such diverse judgments passed upon them; in many cases, the temperamental traits of the critic influence his reactions to this author; in other instances, most effusive tributes, like those by James Lewis May and Paul Gsell, of recent years (1924), have brought natural reactions in more unvarnished truth, tinged with wit and naturalism, like the biography by Jean-Jacques Brousson: _Anatole France Himself_ which has been called facetiously _Anatole France in Bed-Slippers_ (the French title reads _Anatole France en pantouffles_, 1925). Mr. May has written as a friend and warm admirer; Paul Gsell, as a disciple; M. Brousson, as private secretary and fearless narrator.