Excerpt from The Novels, Romances and Writings of Alphonse Daudet<br><br>But granted that Daudet is a great humourist who will hold his own with future readers, the fact remains that he is a French humourist, and the query at once arises whether he will be able to stand that cosmopolitan test which we demand of truly great authors. In other words will his humour bear permanent transplanting into other tongues? Any attempt to answer this question will expose the critic who makes it to a chance of committing a blunder of the kind that future critics delight to hold up to ridicule. A work of humour has diffie culties enough to encounter in its author's native land; these difficulties are enhanced tenfold when the translator or interpreter has intervened. Even when two nations speak a common language, it rarely happens that they can appreciate each other's efforts to be humourous or funny. Many an American fails to smile at the best things of Charles Lamb, and we may rest assured that Mark Twain can tell queer stories of his British experi ences whenever he has a mind to. Then there is the case of Dickens, with whom Daudet is forever being compared. Dickens unquestionably con quered both the British and the American public.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.