French literature

French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak other traditional non-French languages. For literature written in French by citizens of other nations, see Francophone literature.

Selected list of French literary classics

• Marcel Proust - "A la recherche du temps perdu" (Remembrance of Things Past or "In Search of Lost Time")
• Michel de Montaigne - The "Essays"
• La Fontaine - The "Fables"
• Stendhal - "Le Rouge et le noir" ("The Red and The Black")
• François Rabelais - "Gargantua" and "Pantagruel"
• Honoré de Balzac - "Le père Goriot"
• Gustave Flaubert - "Madame Bovary"
• Émile Zola - "Germinal"
• Albert Camus - "The Stranger"
• François-René de Chateaubriand - "Genius of Christianity"
• Stéphane Mallarmé - "Un coup de dés" ("A Throw of the Dice")
• Denis Diderot - "Jacques le fataliste" ("Jacques the Fatalist")
• Jean Racine - "Phèdre"
• Louis-Ferdinand Céline - "Voyage au bout de la nuit" ("Journey to the End of the Night")
• Victor Hugo - "Notre Dame de Paris" ("The Hunchback of Notre Dame"), Les Misérables, "Les Contemplations"
• Gaston Leroux- Le Fantôme de l'opéra ("The Phantom of the Opera"), Le Mystère de la chambre jaune ("The Mystery of the Yellow Room")