His work, mainly in prose form, is remembered as an accomplished and noteworthy contribution to Romanian literature, capturing the dreary life of provincial clerks in the early 20th century.

His last years were spent in seclusion: losing his fortune to Allied carpet bombing, stripped of his Romanian Academy membership by the communist regime, he died suddenly in a road accident.

Bassarabescu descended from boyar families that occupied court positions in Wallachia: his father, Alecu, was a pitar; his mother, Elisa, was the daughter of a staroste, relatives with General Romulus Boteanu.

[1] Enrolled at Saint Sava National College, Bassarabescu was classmates with various intellectual luminaries and political figures of his generation, among them Constantin Banu, Ion Livescu and Scarlat Orăscu.

[8] Together, they put out the makeshift literary review Armonia, described by an aging Bassarabescu as polygraphed "with the faintest and least readable violet letters to have ever been used for writing in this world.

Bassarabescu published his first short stories in that paper, and then in the youth review Generația Viitoare, before being hosted (with words of praise and encouragement) by the literary supplement of Românul newspaper.

[13] This was an impressive feat, to judge by Bassarabescu's own words: "imposingly grand" and "too expensive" venture, Revista Nouă had fascinated him and his Saint Sava colleagues.

As noted by literary historian Zigu Ornea, the stories of Bassarabescu and Brătescu-Voinești were a rare diversion, the magazine having grown "monotonous", "suffocated by bulky specialized studies".

[14] He managed to impress a wide range of professionals, from the Junimist novelist Duiliu Zamfirescu (who guessed in him a future "great writer") to the independent Ilarie Chendi.

[16] Between his move from Revista Nouă to Junimea, Bassarabescu had enlisted at the Literature and Philosophy Faculty of the University of Bucharest (graduated 1897), while also working as a Finance Ministry clerk.

[18] According to Ornea, the panel membership evidenced in itself that political Junimism had mutated into eclecticism: Antipa was a National Liberal, and one regular member, Dimitrie Voinov, a socialist.

[24] With Mihail Sadoveanu, A. de Herz, Emil Gârleanu, George Ranetti and some others, he was employed by the National Theater Bucharest to work on professional translations of comedy and drama.

[23] Bassarabescu became rather close friends with two senior figures on the cultural scene: the Ploiești literary theorist Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea and satirist Ion Luca Caragiale.

[14] He also joined Junimea geographer Simion Mehedinți in putting out Dumineca Poporului review, but contributed his trademark satirical pieces, rather than political articles.

Although subject to the Romanian Army draft, Bassarabescu managed to avoid being called into active duty, and was instead appointed captain of a military reserve in Mogoșoaia train station.

[14] In the second half of 1916, the Central Powers broke through Romania's line of defenses, forcing the government and the Army to withdraw northeast, into Moldavia; Bucharest was abandoned.

[30] As historian Lucian Boia notes, the suspicion is still standing: an entry in Maiorescu's diary shows that Bassarabescu had left the hospital on at least one occasion during the interval of his supposed illness.

Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș, a Junimist in the German ranks, intervened for his release, and then employed him at the Bucharest Police Prefecture — Bassarabescu served there as Divisional Chief from February to April 1917.

[30] According to writer Victor Eftimiu, who knew and befriended Bassarabescu, this assignment suited him perfectly: "Himself a shy man [like his characters,] he was content with sticking to his provincial schoolteacher's job.

"[27] A year later, with peace negotiations under way between the Central Powers and Romania, Bassarabescu was reintegrated into the civil service by the emergency cabinet of Alexandru Marghiloman, a Germanophile Conservative.

[33] Historian Dorin Stănescu places blame for the party's decline on Bassarabescu himself, noting that his investigation for treason contributed to its dismal results in the election of November 1919.

[5] This was a problematic political move: the PNA was firmly planted on the antisemitic right-wing, albeit its prejudice was mild enough to even allow some Jews into party ranks.

[44] The chief sources of inspiration behind Bassarabescu's comedic and realistic style were two Junimist figures: the Romanian classic Ion Luca Caragiale, and his own friend, Brătescu-Voinești.

[48] The eye of such writers is firmly focused on a class of individuals, described for instance in Călinescu: "the isolated folk of provincial boroughs, small-time functionaries of the Romanian Railways, minuscule bourgeois women grinding the great passions of life.

"[49] Contrary to Brătescu-Voinești, he did not depict such men and women as existential losers or "misfits", but as entirely content with their mediocrity, their "terrestrial ideal": "these people", Călinescu writes, "do not suffer, because they do not aim for, or better said they do not foresee, any existence that would be better than theirs.

"[1] The telegraphist Domițian, protagonist of Vulturi, identifies perfection with a hefty state pension; Mister Guță, of the eponymous story, will only accept the company of women who share his obsession for oleander flowers.

[1] As another distinguishing feature, Bassarabescu replaces Caragiale's sarcasm with a "lyrical", "tenderly grotesque", layer,[50] while offering "the surprise of a humane bedding" within the provincial soul.

"[58] In Pe drezină, possibly his most Bovaryistic story,[1] the female protagonist dreams of escaping her drab marriage (to an obese station master), for just a taste of life in the capital.

Acasă ("Home") is a careful inventory of a room seemingly rented by a partying and womanizing officer, including the half-pleading, half-threatening, letter he receives from his desperate supplier of "colonial goods".

For a relevant case, he cites the sketch story fragment: "At once, through the beer garden gates, a man showed up carrying with him a giant plank resting on a pole.