[In the following excerpt Carr discusses the anarchist themes of Mirbeau's three novels of revenge—Le Calvaire, L'Abbé Jules, and Sebastien Roch.]

Political campaigner, administrator, financial speculator, journalist, editor, critic and short-story writer—Mirbeau had tried his hand at all of these, and still he had not found his niche; no area of activity had satisfied him for long, and nothing that he had so far written was of any lasting literary worth. His old friend Maupassant had often expressed his regret, as he did in a letter written early in 1886, that Mirbeau had not yet put his 'talent tres ardent et tres reel' to more worthwhile use. Mirbeau's mistress, whom he was soon to marry, had literary pretensions of her own and was very keen that Mirbeau should make a success of writing as a career. The Leffres de ma chaumiere had passed unnoticed by critics and...