Known today only to specialists, Jean Richepin was a significant figure on the literary scene during the last three decades of the nineteenth century. The publications of the poems, plays, and fiction of this prolific writer were considered important literary events. The press informed readers about his private life and gave details about his liaison with Sarah Bernhardt. Even before the publication of La Chanson des gueux (Beggar's Song) in 1876, his exuberance, affability, good looks, and flamboyant dress made him popular with his fellow bohemians, who congregated in the cafés of the Latin Quarter. Richepin's poems about the urban poor, vagabonds, prostitutes, and street urchins were an important step in the evolution of French poetry. They challenged the dominant aesthetics of the Parnassians, who advocated emotional restraint and wrote perfectly crafted verses rooted in history and legend. Richepin's thematic and linguistic boldness--he used argot in his...