Xavier Eyma

Louis-Xavier Eyma (16 October 1816 – 20 March 1876) was a 19th-century French journalist and writer, author, among others, of novels, travel books and theater plays.

Biography Born in Martinique, an illegitimate son of Louis, a French lawyer who had long worked in New Orleans and Victorine Eyma, Xavier Eyma studied in France and joined the Navy administration in Paris in 1836. He began to write in the Parisian press and in 1840 obtained a first success with his novel Le Médaillon.

Charged with a mission to West Indies in order to study education there (1845), he also traveled to the United States (1846) as French correspondent of the newspaper La Chronique , which inspired him several travel stories. An editor at the Journal des actionnaires when he was back in France, he returned in 1858 to New-Orleans where his father lived, and worked there as director of the French section of L'Abeille (1858–1859). Among several American personalities, he engaged into a friendship with Washington Irving and visited the plains of Ohio, Mammoth Cave, Leavenworth and Philadelphia.

In New Orleans, he attended the arrival of the rest of the tribe of Seminole on their way to deportation in Arkansas. Although an admirer of the United States, Eyma condemned slavery and the massacre of Indians in his writings.

He then visited Cuba and after he returned to France in 1861, he worked for many newspapers including Le Figaro and La Liberté.

His plays were presented on the most important Parisian stages of the 19th century including Théâtre du Vaudeville, Théâtre des Variétés, and Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin.

Director of Nouvelliste de Paris (1874–1876), he also translated American authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson (Les lois de la vie 1864, The Conduct of Life) and Washington Irving (Histoire de la conquête de Grenade 1865, Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada).

Works

1840: Écrivains et artistes vivants, français et étrangers, biographies, 3 vols. 1840: Le Médaillon, novel 1841: Emmanuel, poems 1842 Introduction à une politique générale 1842: L'Abandon !, song 1849: Album de 10 mélodies pour voix et piano, with Charles Delange and Francis Tourte 1849: Le Croiseur, sea song 1849: Dolorita, chanson catalane 1850: Capitaine... de quoi ?, one-act comédie en vaudeville, with Amédée de Jallais 1851: Le Renard et les raisins, comédie en vaudeville en 1 acte, with de Jallais 1852: Les cent écus de Claude, feuilleton 1853: Les Deux Amériques, histoire, mœurs et voyages, report 1853: Le Mariage au bâton, one-act comédie en vaudeville, with Déaddé Saint-Yves 1853: Les Femmes du nouveau monde 1854: Les Peaux-Rouges, scènes de la vie des Indiens, report 1857: Les Peaux-Noires, scènes de la vie des esclaves, report 1860: Excentricités américaines 1860: Le Roi des Tropiques 1860: Le Trône d'argent 1861: Aventuriers et corsaires, Michel Lévy 1861: Le Canal maritime du Darien, état de la question 1861: La République américaine, ses institutions, ses hommes 1862: Le roman de Flavio (Naples en 1798), novel, Michel Lévy 1862: Scènes de mœurs et de voyages dans le Nouveau-Monde 1862: La vie dans le Nouveau-Monde, récit, Poulet-Malassis 1862: Les Trente-quatre étoiles de l'Union américaine 1863: Légendes, fantômes et récits du Nouveau-Monde, 2 vols. 1863: Les Poches de mon parrain, roman, 2 vols. 1864: De la Circulation libre des coupons à revenu fixe 1865: Nice et les Alpes-Maritimes, sites pittoresques, monuments, description et histoire des arrondissements de Nice, de Puget-Théniers et de Grasse composant ce nouveau département, texte descriptif et historique, with Joseph Dessaix 1866: La Chasse à l'esclave, novel 1867: La Mansarde de Rose, followed by Thérèse Lorrain, novel, A. Faure 1868: Tobine, bolero 1874: 20 Mélodies, piano et chant, with Victor Hugo 1874: Les Gamineries de Mme Rivière 1876: La Vie aux États-Unis, notes de voyage, Plon 1877: Les amoureux de la demoiselle, novel, Dentu undated: Les Deux manoirs undated: Le Grand cordon et la corde undated: Mademoiselle Topaze undated: Le Masque blanc undated Monrose...