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Goncourt, Edmond and Jules de

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French novelists, born, the former at Nancy, the latter at Paris; a habit of elaborate note-taking whilst on sketching tours first drew the brothers towards literature, and inoculated them with the habit of minute and accurate observation which gave value to their subsequent writings; their first real venture was a series of historical studies, designed to reproduce with every elaboration of detail French society in the later half of the 18th century, including a "History of French Society during the Revolution"; later they found their true province in the novel, and a series of striking works of fiction became the product of their joint labours, works which have influenced subsequent novelists not a little; "Les Hommes de Lettres" was the first of these, and "Madame Gervaisais" is perhaps their best; their collaboration was broken in 1870 by the death of Jules; but Edmond still continued to write, and produced amongst other novels "La Fille Élisa"; the "Journal" of the brothers appeared in 1888 in six vols. (Edmond, 1822-1888; Jules, 1830-1870).