EDOUARD

ROD (1857-1910)  , French-Swiss novelist, was born at Nyon, in Switzerland, on the 31st of March 1857 . He studied at Lausanne and Berlin, and in 1878 found his way to Paris . In 1881 he dedicated his novel, Palmyre Veulard, to Zola, of whom he was at this period of his career a faithful disciple . A series of novels of similar tendency followed . In 1884 he became editor of the Revue contemporaine, and in 1887 succeeded Marc Monnier as professor of comparative literature at Geneva, where he remained till 1893 . La Course d la mort (1885) marks a turning-point in his career; in it he forsook the so-called naturalistic novel for the analysis of moral motives . He is at his best in presenting cases of conscience, the struggle between passion and duty, and the virtues of renunciation . Le Sens de la vie (1889), one of his most famous books, is in the nature of a complement to La Course d la mort . It was followed by Les Trois cceurs (189o), La Sacrifice (1892), La Vie privee de Michel Teissier (1893), translated as The Private Life of an Eminent Politician (1893); La Seconde Vie de Michel Teissier (1894), Le Silence (1894), Les Roches blanches (1895), Le Dernier Refuge (1896), Le Menage du Pasteur Naudie (1898), a study of Protestant France; L'Eau courante (1902), L'Inutile Effort (1903), Un Vainqueur (1904), L'Indocile (1905), and L'Incendie (1906) . M . Rod's books of literary criticism include Les Idees morales du temps present (1897), an admirable Essai sur Goethe (1898), Stendhal (1892), and some columns of collected essays . He published L'Affaire J .

J .

Rousseau in 1906, and in the same year he drew from an episode in the life of the philosopher a play in three acts, Le Reformateur, which was produced at the Nouveau Theatre . He died in January 1910 .