Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
9 min read
French writer brothers and art critics, they were the co-founders of literary naturalism with novels such as Germinie Lacerteux (1864). Their Journal, kept from 1851 to 1896, is a landmark record of artistic and literary life in the 19th century. In his will, Edmond established the Académie Goncourt, which has awarded France's most prestigious literary prize since 1903.
Frequently asked questions
Famous Quotes
« We were the first to write about the woman of the people, the true woman, the woman without pretense or lies. (Preface to Germinie Lacerteux, 1864)»
Key Facts
- 1822: Birth of Edmond de Goncourt; 1830: birth of Jules de Goncourt
- 1851: Beginning of the Journal, kept until Edmond's death in 1896
- 1864: Publication of Germinie Lacerteux, the founding novel of French naturalism
- 1870: Death of Jules de Goncourt; Edmond continues their shared work alone
- 1896: Edmond's will establishes the Académie Goncourt; first Prix Goncourt awarded in 1903
Works & Achievements
The first novel co-signed by the two brothers, it marks their entry into literature through realism and precise documentation. Seldom read today, it already foreshadows their method of clinical observation of reality.
A founding novel of naturalism, inspired by their own servant Rose Malingre, an alcoholic and libertine. The preface asserts the right to write about the working classes with the rigor of a clinician, preceding Zola by more than a decade.
The portrait of an independent and modern young woman clashing with bourgeois conventions. A psychological and social novel admired for the finesse of its writing and the modernity of its heroine.
A novel about the world of painters and models in Montmartre, a direct reflection of the artistic life the Goncourts observed daily. One of the first works to depict the art world with documented realism.
The last novel co-signed by the two brothers, about a woman swept away by Roman mysticism. Considered their most accomplished joint work from a stylistic standpoint, it closes eighteen years of fraternal collaboration.
A daily chronicle of nineteenth-century artistic and literary life, kept for forty-five years. An irreplaceable historical source, the Journal delivers vivid portraits of Flaubert, Zola, Daudet, Turgenev, and Princess Mathilde.
Pioneering monographs devoted to the Japanese masters of the woodblock print, published by Edmond alone. These essays contributed decisively to the recognition of Japanese art in Europe and to nurturing Japonisme among Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters.
Anecdotes
Edmond and Jules de Goncourt formed such a tightly fused writing partnership that they composed their novels and their Journal together, sentence by sentence. When Jules died of cerebral syphilis in June 1870, Edmond confessed that he felt as though he had lost half of himself; he went on to keep the Journal alone for twenty-six years, like an endless dialogue with his vanished brother.
The Goncourts were among the very first French people to collect Japanese art, long before the word "japonisme" even existed. As early as the 1860s, they were buying ukiyo-e prints, lacquerware, and porcelain from a Parisian shop run by a dealer on the Rue de Rivoli. Their enthusiasm helped bring Japanese aesthetics to artists such as Degas, Monet, and Van Gogh.
The preface to Germinie Lacerteux (1864) is a genuine literary manifesto: in it, the brothers claim the right to write about ordinary working people with the same clinical rigor a physician brings to examining a patient. This short, hard-hitting text is considered the birth certificate of naturalism in France, preceding Zola by several years.
Every Sunday, Edmond de Goncourt hosted a literary *grenier* — an informal attic gathering — at his home in Auteuil, welcoming Zola, Daudet, Maupassant, and many others. These meetings, known as the *dîners du grenier*, were so celebrated that they shaped the entire literary life of Paris throughout the 1880s and 1890s. It was in this spirit of intellectual fellowship that Edmond conceived the Académie Goncourt in his will.
The first Prix Goncourt, awarded in 1903, was immediately controversial: the jury, made up of the ten academicians named in Edmond's will, honored John-Antoine Nau for Force ennemie, a choice that puzzled many readers. Ever since, the prize has been one of France's most talked-about literary events each year, with the power to send a novel's sales soaring.
Primary Sources
Living in the nineteenth century, in an age of universal suffrage, democracy, and liberalism, we asked ourselves whether what are called the lower classes did not have a right to the Novel.
My brother died this morning. I remain alone in an apartment where everything speaks of him, where his hand has touched every object. I feel as though I am no more than half a man.
We found, in a curiosity shop, Japanese albums of such fantasy and unexpectedness that we were enchanted; drawings of a lightness, a vivacity, a naturalness that European art almost never achieves.
My wish is that my income be used to found an annual literary prize awarded to the author of the best imaginative prose work published in the year.
Key Places
Birthplace of Edmond de Goncourt (born **26 May 1822**). Nancy, a city of baroque and rococo art and heir to the Duchy of Lorraine, nurtured Edmond's love of decorative beauty and refined craftsmanship from childhood.
Edmond de Goncourt's home in Auteuil, where he settled after Jules's death. Every Sunday he hosted the celebrated "grenier dinners," gathering Zola, Daudet, Maupassant, and the literary elite of the nascent Third Republic.
A niece of Napoleon I, Princess Mathilde hosted the most celebrated social and intellectual salon of the Second Empire, where the Goncourts mingled with Flaubert, Sainte-Beuve, Turgenev, and Gautier. It was here that they built the core of their literary and artistic network.
Since **1914**, the Académie Goncourt has gathered monthly at Restaurant Drouant to deliberate and, each November, to award the Prix Goncourt. The venue embodies the lasting legacy of Edmond de Goncourt's testamentary bequest.
The country house where Edmond de Goncourt died on **16 July 1896**, while visiting his friend Alphonse Daudet. He often spent summers there writing and entertaining guests in a bucolic setting far from the bustle of Paris.
