Physical description

Hard cover book. Crainquebille Putois Riquet
Author: Anatole France
Editor: Frederic Chapman
Publisher: The Bodley Head/John Lane
Translation : Winifred Stephens
Date: 1915
Further Information: Red Cloth hardcover with lettering and patterning to spine in gilt. The spine has a Library label with an inscription.

Publication type

fiction

Inscriptions & markings

The label on the spine with typed text PAT 843 FRA
Pastedown front endpaper has a sticker from Warrnambool Mechanics Institute and Free Library
Front loose endpaper has a sticker from Corangamite Regional Library Service
Front loose endpaper has a stamp from Corangamite Regional Library Service

Summary

The story "Crainquebille" is the title piece and the book's best-known story; it follows an elderly Parisian street peddler wrongly accused of insulting a policeman. The court examination is characterised by the accused's silence in the face of an intimidating judicial system, with the president answering his own questions. It's a sharp satire of French justice and how the poor are treated by the legal system arguably France's most famous piece of social criticism.
"Putois" is a lighter, whimsical fable. It's about a family that invents a fictional handyman as a convenient excuse, and the lie takes on a life of its own, spreading through the town until it seems poised to become real a wry meditation on how rumours and convenient lies can calcify into truth.
"Riquet" concerns the philosophical dog belonging to the character Monsieur Bergeret, who appears to be a recurring figure in France's fiction, presented here along with "The Meditations of Riquet" as connected pieces. The volume also gathers several shorter tales: "The Necktie," "The Montil Manœuvres," "Émile," "Adrienne Buquet," "The Intaglio," "La Signora Chiara," "Upright Judges," "The Ocean Christ," and the "Jean Marteau" sequence, among others.