A century after his death, Alphonse Daudet has entered a familiar literary no-man's-land reserved for those unlucky authors who, once extremely popular, have declined in public favor to the point where the name is still very well known but the achievements that earned the fame are all but forgotten. Daudet has joined company with the likes of Guy de Maupassant, Rudyard Kipling, and Bret Harte, authors known, by name at least, to virtually every literate person, usually because of one or two short pieces that turn up so often in anthologies that the name is inescapable. Yet the great bulk of such an author's work is no longer read or studied, except by specialists, with the resulting paradox that the author is reduced to a household name about whom almost nothing is known anymore.

There are quite specific reasons, of course, that explain--partially at least--why Daudet's reputation has...