X. B. Saintine

Xavier Boniface Saintine (10 July 1798–21 January 1865) was a French dramatist and novelist. He was born Joseph Xavier Boniface in Paris in 1798. In 1823, he produced a volume of poetry in the manner of the Romanticists, entitled "Poèmes, odes, épîtres". In 1836 appeared "Picciola", a novel about the comte de Charney, a political prisoner in Piedmont, whose reason was saved by his cult of a tiny flower growing between the paving stones of his prison yard. This story is a masterpiece of the sentimental kind, and has been translated into many European languages."The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information", 11th ed.] The novel earned him renown and came to be regarded as a classic of French literature.Garnett, Richard, ed. (1899). "The International Library of Famous Literature: Selections from the World's Great Writers Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, with Biographical and Explanatory Notes and Critical Essays by Many Eminent Writers", Vol. X. London: The Standard, p. 4732.]

He produced many other novels, none of striking individuality with the exception of "Seul" (1857), which purported to be the authentic record of Alexander Selkirk on his desert island. Saintine was a prolific dramatist, and collaborated in more than 200 pieces with Eugène Scribe and others, usually under the name of Xavier. He co-wrote the story which was to form the basis for Bellini's opera "I puritani". He died in Paris in 1865.

References

Further reading

* Clapin, A. C. (1883). "Preface", " [http://books.google.com/books?id=JBkCAAAAQAAJ&q=picciola+saintine+clapin&dq=picciola+saintine+clapin&pgis=1 Picciola] ". Oxford University Press. Detailed biography of Saintine in the introduction to his most famous work.

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