Eugène Sue (1804–1857)

Eugéne Sue, französischer Romanautor, wude am 26.1.1804 in Paris geboren. Er war Sohn eines angesehenen Chirurgen der Napoleonischen Armee und soll Kaiserin Josephine zur Patin gehabt haben. Sue arbeitete als Feldchirurg beim spanischen Feldzug (1823) und in der Schlacht von Navarino (1828). 1829 setzte der Tod seines Vaters ihn in den Besitz eines beachtlichen Vermögens, und er ließ sich in Paris nieder. Seine Marineerfahrungen waren ihm bei der Konzeption seinerersten Romane von großem Nutzen, die er auf dem Höhepunkt der französischen Romantik um 1830 verfaßte. He was strongly affected by the Socialist ideas of the day, and these prompted his most famous works: "Les Mystères de Paris" and "Le Juif errant", which were among the most popular specimens of the _roman-feuilleton_. He followed these up with some singular and not very edifying books: "Les Sept péchés capitaux," which contained stories to illustrate each sin, "Les Mystères du peuple," which was suppressed by the censor in 1857, and several others, all on a very large scale, though the number of volumes gives an exaggerated idea of their length. Some of his books, among them "Le Juif errant" and "Le Mystéres de Paris," were dramatized by himself, usually in collaboration with others. His period of greatest success and popularity coincided with that of Alexandre Dumas, with whom some writers have put him on an equality. Sue has neither Dumas's wide range of subject, nor, above all, his faculty of conducting the story by means of lively dialogue; he has, however, a command of terror which Dumas seldom or never attained. From the literary point of view his style is bad, and his construction prolix. After the revolution of 1848 he sat for Paris (the Seine) in the Assembly from April 1850, and was exiled in consequence of his protest against the _coup d'état_ of the 2nd of December 1851. This exile stimulated his literary production, but the works of his last days are on the whole much inferior to those of his middle period. Sue died at Annecy (Savoy) on the 3rd of August 1857.