Marcel Brion
Marcel Brion (lang; 21 November 1895 – 23 October 1984) was a French essayist, literary critic, novelist, and historian.
Marcel Brion

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- Name
- Marcel Brion
- Born
- 21 November 1895
- Birthplace
- Marseille, France
- Died
- 23 October 1984
- Place of death
- Paris, France
- Occupation
- Essayist, literary critic, novelist, and historian
- Full name
- Marcel Marius Gabriel Brion.
- Nationality
- France.
- Education
- Lycée Thiers, Collège Champittet, Faculté de droit d'Aix-en-Provence and Paul Cézanne University.
- Honours
- Officer of the Legion of Honour, Croix de guerre 1914–1918, Grand Officer of the National Order of Merit, Officer of Arts and Letters, Prince Pierre Award and Grand prix de littérature de l'Académie française.
- Languages
- French.
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Marcel Brion (lang; 21 November 1895 – 23 October 1984) was a French essayist, literary critic, novelist, and historian.
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Authority files
gnd · 5199781-2 · wikidata · Q725605 · wikipedia · Marcel Brion
In this article
Biography
Biography
Marcel Brion studied at Lycée Thiers, Collège Champittet and Faculté de droit d'Aix-en-Provence. The recorded working language is French. Positions recorded include seat 33 of the Académie française. Distinctions recorded are Officer of the Legion of Honour, Croix de guerre 1914–1918, Grand Officer of the National Order of Merit and Officer of Arts and Letters.

La tombe de l'écrivain et historien Marcel Brion au cimetière des Longs Réages de Meudon dans les Hauts-de-Seine. (Division A)
Antoine Rex

La tombe de l'écrivain et historien Marcel Brion au cimetière des Longs Réages de Meudon dans les Hauts-de-Seine. (Division A)
Antoine Rex
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Marcel Brion • Born — 21 November 1895 • Birthplace — Marseille, France • Died — 23 October 1984 • Place of death — Paris, France • Occupation — Essayist, literary critic, novelist, and historian
Early life
Early life
The son of a lawyer, Brion was classmates in Thiers with Marcel Pagnol and Albert Cohen. After completing his secondary education in Collège Champittet, Switzerland, he studied law at the University of Aix-en-Provence.
Career
Career
Counsel to the bar of Marseille between 1920 and 1924, he abandoned his legal career to turn to literature. Brion wrote nearly a hundred books in his career, ranging from historical biography to examinations of Italian and German art, and turning later in life to novels. His most famous collection of stories is the 1942 Les Escales de la Haute Nuit ("The Shore Leaves of the Deepest Night"). An essay of Brion appears in Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress, the important 1929 critical appreciation of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. He was a friend of the philosopher Xavier Tilliette. In 1964, Brion was elected to the Académie française's chair 33, replacing his friend Jean-Louis Vaudoyer. Other distinctions include membership in the Legion of Honour, the Croix de guerre, a Grand Officer in the French Order of Merit, and an Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. The 1982 television program The Romantic Spirit, which aired in the U.S. on the A&E (TV channel) from 1985–1991, credits Brion as having "devised" the series.
Biographies
Biographies
• Bartolomé de Las Casas, Père des Indiens, Plon, 1928 • La Vie d'Attila, Gallimard, 1928 • Rudyard Kipling, Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue critique, 1929 • Théodoric, roi des Ostrogoths, Payot, 1935; 1979 • La reine Jeanne, Société des bibliophiles de Provence, 1936; 1944 (Robert Laffont) • Laurent le Magnifique, Albin Michel, 1937 • Blanche de Castille, Les éditions de France, 1939 • Machiavel, Albin Michel, 1948 • Frédéric II de Hohenstaufen, Tallandier, 1948 • Le Pape et le Prince - Les Borgia, Hachette, 1953 • Tamerlan, Albin Michel, 1999 • Charles le Téméraire, grand-duc d'Occident, Hachette, 1947. Réédition: Tallandier, 2006, compte rendu en ligne. • Les Amantes courts essais sur Diotima - Alcoforado - Frédérique Brion - Charlotte Stieglitz et Louise Labé, Albin Michel, 1941
History
History
• Les Mondes antiques, Arthème Fayard, 1954; Tallandier, 1977. 9 volumes: L'Égypte (1 et 2), L'Orient (3), Les Hébreux (4), La Grèce (5 et 6), Rome (7 à 9)
Novels
Novels
• Le Caprice espagnol (Gallimard nrf, 1929) • La Folie Céladon (Éditions Correa, 1935, Albin Michel 1963, et livre de Poche, 1989) • Les Escales de la haute nuit, nouvelles, (Laffont, 1942, réédite bibliothèque Marabout, 1971, puis Albin Michel, 1986) • Un enfant de la terre et du ciel (Albin Michel, 1943) • Château d'ombre (Luf, 1943, puis Albin Michel, 1960) • L’Enchanteur (Luf, 1947) • La Chanson de l'Oiseau étranger (Albin Michel, 1958) • La Ville de sable, (Albin Michel, 1959) • La Rose de cire (Albin Michel, 1964) • De l'autre côté de la forêt (Albin Michel, 1966) • Les Miroirs et les gouffres (Albin Michel, 1968) • L’Ombre d’un arbre mort (Albin Michel, 1970) • Nous avons traversé la montagne (Albin Michel, 1972) • La Fête de la tour des âmes (Albin Michel, 1974) • Algues - fragment d'un journal intime (Albin Michel, 1976) • Les Vaines Montagnes (Albin Michel, 1985) • Le Journal d’un visiteur (Albin Michel, 1980) • Villa des hasards (Albin Michel, 1984) • Ivre d’un rêve héroïque et brutal (de Fallois, 2014)
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Marseille.
Birth place
7th arrondissement of Paris.
Death place
English language publications
English language publications
• Pompeii & Herculaneum: The glory and the grief. • Albrecht Dürer, 'The World of Art Library' series • Romantic Art (Thames and Hudson, 1960) • Waystations of the Deep Night (Wakefield Press, 2020).
Publications and editions
Catalogued output
Publications and editions
The following works and productions are recorded by name or by count.
Digitised material and holdings
Where the work is held
Digitised material and holdings
Institutional holdings are recorded as follows.
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
scholarly publication
- Marcel Brion, citoyen des mondes (1895-1984), Allemagne d'aujourd'hui, 1988
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 1988
Institutional database
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q725605: Marcel Brion
Scholarly · Wikimedia Foundation
reference work
- “Marcel Brion”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Arts and literature
• Giotto, Rieder, 1928 • Turner, Rieder, 1929 • Botticelli, Crès, 1932 • Klee, Somogy, 1955 • Kandinsky, Somogy, 1960 • L'Œuvre de Balzac, 16 volumes, Classiques-CFL, 1950-1953 • Fabrizio Clerici, Milan, Electra Editrice, 1955 • L'Allemagne romantique, 4 vol., Albin Michel: • Vol. I - Kleist, Brentano, Wackenroder, Tieck, Caroline von Günderode, 1962 • Vol. II - Novalis, Hoffmann, Jean-Paul, Eichendorff, 1963 • Vol. III - Le Voyage initiatique - 1, 1977;. Table: Le Voyage initiatique, Thème; Variations; Pressentiment et Présence de Joseph von Eichendorff; La Loge invisible de Jean-Paul; Les Voyages de Franz Sternbald de Ludwig Tieck; Heinrich von Ofterdingen de Novalis; Le Voyage en Orient de Hermann Hesse • Vol. IV - Le Voyage initiatique - 2, 1978 • Venise, Albin Michel 1962 • L'Art romantique, Hachette, 1963 • L'Âge d'or de la peinture hollandaise, Elsevier, 1964 • L'Œil, l'esprit et la main du peintre, Plon, 1966 • Peinture romantique, Albin Michel, 1967 • La Grande Aventure de la peinture religieuse, Perrin, 1968 • Rembrandt, Albin Michel, 1969 • Titien, Somogy, 1971 • Guardi, Henri Scrépel, 1976 • Goethe, Albin Michel, 1982 • Robert Schumann et l'âme romantique, Albin Michel, 1954 • Paul Cézanne, Bordas, 1988 • Art fantastique, Albin Michel 1989 • Michel-Ange, Albin Michel, 1995 • Léonard de Vinci, Albin Michel, 1995 • Mozart, Perrin, 2006 • Le Théâtre des esprits, préface d'Agnès Brion et note liminaire de Patrick Brion, La tour verte, 2011
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
scholarly publication
VerifiedInstitutional database
Wikidata, structured authority record Q725605: Marcel BrionWikimedia Foundation
Verifiedreference work
Partially resolved
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 15 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
38,960 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Marcel AllainAuthor
- Marcel ArlandAuthor
- Marcel BéaluAuthor
- Marcel BeyerAuthor
- Marcel DialloAuthor
- Marcel GauchetAuthor
- Marcel Jacques BoulengerAuthor
- Marcel JullianAuthor
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