Octave Feuillet

His most popular work remains his 1858 novel Le Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre (The Story of a Poor Young Man), which has been adapted for film many times by Italian, French, and Argentinian directors.

He was sent to Lycée Louis-le Grand in Paris, where he achieved high distinction, assuring him of a good post in the diplomatic service.

Other acclaimed works written in Saint-Lô were La Petite Comtesse (1857), Dalila (1857), and the popular Le Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre (1858).

[3] Seemingly repeating his father's life, Feuillet himself grew ill at Saint-Lô with a more severe nervous condition, but his wife and mother-in-law helped sustain him.

He bought a house called Les Paillers in the suburbs of Saint-Lô, where he lived, hidden among the numerous rosebushes and their blooms that obsessed him, for fifteen years.

1886 saw the publication of La Morte, to which influential literary critic Walter Pater devoted a chapter of praise and analysis in his 1889 essay collection, Appreciations.

[4] After the sale of Les Paillers, Feuillet spent his last years as a nomad owing to depression and other health problems.