Alain-Fournier's reputation rests principally on one widely acclaimed novel, Le Grand Meaulnes (1913; literally Big Meaulnes), and on his extensive correspondence with Jacques Rivière, critic and later editor of the prestigious Nouvelle Revue Française. Baptized Henri Alban Fournier, he adopted the demi-pseudonym Alain-Fournier in December 1907 for his first publication, an essay entitled "Le Corps de la femme" (Woman's Body), in the Grande Revue.

Essential to an understanding of Le Grand Meaulnes is Alain-Fournier's nostalgia for his happy childhood and his intense attachment to the villages of his youth, especially Nançay, La Chapelle d'Angillon, and Epineuil-le-Fleuriel. Throughout his life he dreamed of happiness as a return to this period of wonder and innocence when the world was filled with mystery, marvel, and endless possibilities.

Alain-Fournier was born on 3 October 1886 in the home of his maternal grandparents at La Chapelle d'Angillon, thirty miles north of...