Francis Carco

Francis Carco (born François Carcopino-Tusoli) (1886–1958) was a French author, born at Nouméa, New Caledonia. He was a poet, belonging to the Fantaisiste school, a novelist, a dramatist, and art critic for L'Homme libre and Gil Blas. During World War I he became aviation pilot at Étampes, after studying at the aviation school there. His works are picturesque, painting as they do the street life of Montmartre, and being written often in the argot of Paris. He has been called the "romancier des apaches." His memoir, The Last Bohemia: From Montmartre to the Latin Quarter, contains reminiscences of Bohemian life in Paris during the early years of the twentieth century. He had an affair with Katherine Mansfield in 1915.

Carco held the ninth seat at Académie Goncourt from 1937–1958. He is buried in Cimetière de Bagneux. He was the author of:

• Instincts (1911)
• Jésus-la-Caille (novel, 1914)
• Les Innocents (1917)
• Au coin des rues (tales, 1918, 1922)
• Les Malheurs de Fernande (sequel to Jésus-la-Caille 1918)
• Les Mystères de la Morgue ou les Fiancés du IVº arrondissement. Roman gai (1918)
• L'Equipe (1919)
• La Poésie (1919)
• Maman Petitdoigt (1920)
• Francis Carco, raconté par lui-meme (1921; in the collection Ceux dont on parle, directed by Marc Saunier)
• Promenades pittoresques à Montmartre (1922)
• L'homme traqué (1922; Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française)
• Vérotchka l'Étrangère ou le Gout du malheur (1923)
• Le Roman de François Villon (1926), a heavily fictionalised biography of the 15th-century poet.
• Brumes (1935)