Although Charles-Louis Philippe liked to claim that his work was fundamentally apolitical and asocial, it does constitute an important link in the tradition of writing which takes working-class people and their environment for its principal subject. His treatment may lack the bite and satirical edge of Octave Mirabeau's writing; it may have none of Emile Zola's massive vision of a class-ridden society or of Jules Vallès's indignation at injustices and inequalities; nor does it have the political dimension that becomes increasingly characteristic of Henri Barbusse's work or, later, of Paul Nizan's. But Philippe does continue a tradition that was already apparent in the works of authors such as Hugo, Sand, Lamartine, and many minor writers in the early part of the nineteenth century who chose to romanticize, dignify, and even idealize the peasant or workers. He also anticipates various aspects of nonmilitant proletarian and populist writing...