Maxime Du Camp (8 February 1822 – 9 February 1894) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and photographer

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

.

Life

Born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, Du Camp was the son of a successful surgeon

Surgery

Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...

. After finishing college, he indulged in his strong desire for travel, thanks to his father's assets. Du Camp traveled in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and the East between 1844 and 1845, and again between 1849 and 1851 in company with Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...

. After his return, Du Camp wrote about his traveling experiences. Flaubert also wrote about his experiences with Maxime.

In 1851, Du Camp became a founder of the Revue de Paris (suppressed in 1858), and a frequent contributor to the Revue des deux mondes

Revue des deux mondes

The Revue des deux Mondes is a French language monthly literary and cultural affairs magazine that has been published in Paris since 1829....

. In 1853, he became an officer of the Legion of Honour. Serving as a volunteer with Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...

 in his 1860 conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Du Camp recounted his experiences in Expédition des deux Siciles (1861). In 1870 he was nominated for the senate, but his election was frustrated by the downfall of the Empire

Second French Empire

The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...

. He was elected a member of the French Academy

Académie française

L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...

 in 1880, mainly, it is said, on account of his history of the Commune

Paris Commune

The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...

, published under the title of Les Convulsions de Paris (1878–1880).

Du Camp was an early amateur photographer who learned the craft from Gustave Le Gray

Gustave Le Gray

Jean-Baptiste Gustave Le Gray has been called "the most important French photographer of the nineteenth century" because of his technical innovations in the still new medium of photography, his role as the teacher of other noted photographers, and the extraordinary imagination he brought to picture...

 shortly prior to departing on his 1849-1859 trip to Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

. His travel books were among the first to be illustrated with photographs.

Maxime Du Camp died in 1894 and was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris.

Writings

• Chants modernes (1855)
• Convictions (1858)

Works on travel:

• Souvenirs et paysages d'orient (1848)
• Egypte, Nubie, Palestine, Syrie (1852)

Works of art criticism:

• Les Salons de 1857, 1859, 1861

Novels:

• L'Homme au bracelet d'or (1862)
• Une histoire d'amour (1889)

Literary studies:

• Théophile Gautier
  Théophile Gautier
  Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
  
  (1890)

Du Camp authored a valuable book on the daily life of Paris, Paris, ses organes, ses fonctions, sa vie dans la seconde moitié du XIX siècle (1869–1875). He published several works on social questions, one of which, the Auteurs de mon temps, was to be kept sealed in the Bibliothèque Nationale until 1910. His Souvenirs littéraires (2 vols., 1882–1883) contain much information about contemporary writers, especially Gustave Flaubert, of whom Du Camp was an early and intimate friend.

External links

• http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=mediatype%3A%28texts%29%20-contributor%3Agutenberg%20AND%20%28subject%3A%22Camp%2C%20Maxime%20Du%201822-1894%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Camp%2C%20Maxime%20Du%2C%201822-1894%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Maxime%20Du%20Camp%22%20OR%20title%3A%22Maxime%20Du%20Camp%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Maxime%20Du%20Camp%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Du%20Camp%2C%20Maxime%201822-1894%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Du%20Camp%2C%20Maxime%2C%201822-1894%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Maxime%20Du%20Camp%22%20OR%20title%3A%22Maxime%20Du%20Camp%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Maxime%20Du%20Camp%22%29Works by or about Maxime Du Camp] at Internet Archive
  Internet Archive
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   (scanned books original editions)