[1] He was born at Nyon, in western Switzerland, studied at Lausanne, where he wrote his doctoral thesis about the Oedipus legend (Le développement de la légende d'Œdipe dans l'histoire de la littérature), and Berlin, and in 1878 relocated to Paris.

[2] In 1881, he dedicated his novel, Palmyre Veulard, to Zola, of whom he was at this time of his career a faithful disciple.

In 1884, he became editor of the magazine Revue contemporaine, and in 1887 succeeded Marc Monnier as professor of comparative literature at Geneva, where he remained until 1893.

It was followed by Les Trois cœurs (1890), Le Sacrifice (1892), La Vie privée de Michel Teissier (1893), translated as The Private Life of an Eminent Politician (1893); La Seconde Vie de Michel Teissier (1894), Le Silence (1894), Les Roches blanches (1895), Le Dernier Refuge (1896), Le Ménage du pasteur Naudi (1898), a study of Protestant France; L'eau courante (1902), L'Inutile effort (1903), Un Vainqueur (1904), L'Indocile (1905), and L'Incendie (1906).

M. Rod's books of literary criticism include Les Idées morales du temps présent (1897), Essai sur Goethe (1898), Stendhal (1892), and some collected essays.