Eugene Sue
EUGENE SUE was born at Paris, January 20, 1804. His father was a distinguished surgeon in Napoleon's army, and he himself served in a like capacity at the battle of Navarino in 1826. After a varied experience in the army and navy, he inherited his father's fortune in 1829 and set up to follow Cooper's example in the telling of tales of the sea, for which his experience well fitted him. The great romantic movement included him in its all-embracing sweep. Many thought him the equal of Dumas, but facility of composition is probably the only point on which he was fully able to meet his great contemporary. Socialism greatly attracted him, and in pleading for the cause of the working classes he won a large audience. He sat in the French Assembly, but his opposition to the coup d'etat of Napoleon III sent him into exile. He died at Annecy in Savoy, August 3, 1857.
His "Mysteries of Paris" and "The Wandering Jew" reached enormous length and enormous numbers of readers as they appeared in newspapers, in book form, and on the stage.