Charles Sorel, sieur de Souvigny

Charles Sorel, sieur de Souvigny (c. 1602 – 7 March 1674) was a French novelist and general writer.

The episodical adventures of Francion found many readers, who nevertheless kept their admiration for Honoré d'Urfé's L'Astrée, which it was intended to ridicule.

[1] Sorel decided to make his intention unmistakable, and in Le Berger extravagant (3 vols, 1627) he wrote a burlesque, in which a Parisian shop-boy, his head turned by sentiment, chooses an unprepossessing mistress and starts life as a shepherd with a dozen sheep on the banks of the Seine.

Sorel did not succeed in founding the novel of character, and what he accomplished was more in the direction of farce, but he struck a shrewd blow at heroic romances.

[1] Among his other works are Polyandre (1648) and La Connaissance des bons livres (1671).