Selected Poems from ‘Les Chants Modernes’, 1855

Maxime du Camp (1822 – 1894), journalist, poet, novelist, photographer, and historian, was born in Paris, the son of a successful surgeon Théodore-Joseph du Camp, who died shortly after Maxime’s birth. His mother Alexandrine (née Cheronnet) died when he was fifteen, and he was cared for by his maternal grandparents. After finishing college with a bachelor’s degree in literature, he indulged a strong desire for travel, thanks to an inheritance from his father.

He journeyed in Europe, and to the Near East, between 1844 and 1845, visiting Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, and Algiers. In 1847 he undertook a walking trip to Brittany with his friend Gustave Flaubert, which was partly a literary pilgrimage, motivated by admiration for François-René de Chateaubriand, the father of French Romanticism. They travelled through North-Western France from May to August, taking in Saint-Malo, Chateaubriand’s birthplace and the site of his tomb, and co-wrote an account of the trip. Between 1849 and 1851, again in company with Flaubert, with whom he maintained a close and lasting friendship, he travelled to North Africa, primarily Egypt.

Among his travel publications of particular note, are his Souvenirs et Paysages d’Orient (1848) covering the earlier Levant journey, and Egypte, Nubie, Palestine, Syrie (1852) covering the latter. As an early photographer, having learned the basics from Gustave Le Gray prior to his 1849–1851 trip to Egypt, his account of that journey was among the first to contain photographic illustrations.

On his return to Paris, in 1851, Du Camp became a co-founder, together with Arsène Houssaye, Théophile Gautier, and Louis de Cormenin, of the Revue de Paris, and was also a frequent contributor to the Revue des Deux Mondes. In 1853, he was appointed an officer of the Legion of Honour. He later served as a volunteer under Garibaldi, during the latter’s 1860 conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. A friend of Gautier, Du Camp published a full literary study of the latter in 1890. Indeed, he was associated with many literary figures of his day, including Victor Hugo, Gérard de Nerval, and Alfred de Musset.

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