Books by Jules Romains

Jules Romains, 1885-1972, is the pseudonym of Louis Farigoule, a French novelist, dramatist, and poet. Romains was the founder of Unanimism, a social-literary theory that posited a collective spirit or personality within society. This concept pervades an early collection of his poems, La Vie unanime (1908), as well as his principal work, the twenty-seven-volume novel cycle, Men of Good Will (1932-46), which gives an intricate and panoramic view of French life from 1908 to 1933 with no central figure but a huge cast of characters. His plays include a different version of Donogoo-Tonka (also untranslated) and the satirical farce Knock; ou, Le Triomphe de la medecine (1923; translated as Doctor Knock), concerning the power of medical doctors to strain human credulity. Both were made into films. In 1946 he was elected to the Academie Francaise.