Commentators have observed that while Mirbeau's works were usually popular and financially successful, his novels were generally valued more for their social and political ideas than their literary style. Controversy over the pacifist theme of Calvary significantly contributed to the work's popular success. As an art critic he is credited with championing the work of such unknown but soon-to-befamous artists as Auguste Rodin and Claude Monet, and his articles on political issues, particularly anarchism and pacifism, were widely read during his lifetime. Summarizing Mirbeau's literary career, Edmund Wilson observed that he was "not only outspoken and tactless: he did not even value the classical 'bon sens francais'—behaved habitually, from the French point of view, intemperately, quixotically, absurdly. A Normand, he was in some ways quite close to the English …, that is, he was blunt, self-willed, and not particularly intelligent at the same time that he was subject...