He is the author of many collections of whimsical writings. A poet as much as a humorist, he cultivated the verse form known as holorhyme, i.e. made up entirely of homophonous verses, where entire lines are pronounced the same. For example:
Par les bois du djinn où s'entasse de l'effroi,
Parle et bois du gin, ou cent tasses de lait froid.
Allais wrote the earliest known example of a completely silent musical composition. His Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Great Deaf Man of 1897 consists of twenty-four blank measures. It predates similarly silent but intellectually serious works by John Cage and Erwin Schulhoff by many years. His prose piece "Story for Sara" was translated and illustrated by Edward Gorey. Allais participated in humorous exhibitions, including those of the Salon des Arts Incohérents of 1883 and 1884, held at the Galerie Vivienne. At these, inspired by his friend Paul Bilhaud's 1882 exhibit of an entirely black painting entitled "Negroes fight in a tunnel", Allais exhibited arguably some of the earliest examples of monochrome painting: for instance his plain white sheet of Bristol paperPremière communion de jeunes filles chlorotiques par un temps de neige , and a similar red work Apoplectic Cardinals Harvesting Tomatoes on the Shore of the Red Sea. Allais published his Album primo-avrilesque in 1897, a monograph with seven monochrome artworks, accompanied by the score of his silent funeral march. However, Allais's activity bears more similarity to 20th centuryDada, or Neo-Dada, and particularly the works of the Fluxus group of the 1960s, than to 20th century monochrome painting since Malevich. While consuming absinthe at café tables, Allais wrote 1600 newspaper and magazine pieces, and co-founded the Club of the Hydropaths. He died in Paris. A film based on his novel L'Affaire Blaireau appeared in 1958 as Neither Seen Nor Recognized . Earlier versions with the same title as the original novel appeared in 1923 and 1932. Miles Kington, humorous writer and musician, translated some of Allais' pieces into idiomatic English as The World of Alphonse Allais. In the United States, Doug Skinner has translated eight books by Allais, including Captain Cap and his only novel Honfleur has a street, rue Alphonse Allais, and a school, Collège Alphonse Allais, named for him. There is a Place Alphonse-Allais in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. The Académie Alphonse-Allais has awarded an annual prize, the :fr:Prix Alphonse-Allais|Prix Alphonse-Allais, in his honor since 1954.
Museum
The Alphonse Allais Museum, also called Le Petit Musée, in Honfleur, claiming to be the smallest museum in the world, consists of a small collection of "rarities", including the skull of Voltaire at age seventeen and a true piece of a False Cross, as well as inventions such as a special Chinese teacup made for left-handed people, blue, white, and red starch to keep flags flying when there is no wind, black confetti for widows, and so on. The museum was founded on the second floor in Allais' parents' pharmacy in 1999 by the owner of the pharmacy, and moved to a new location in 2019.
The Association des Amis d'Alphonse Allais, founded in 1934, manages the Allais Museum and promotes young humorists who follow in the spirit of Allais.
The Académie Alphonse Allais, created in 1954, Allais' 100th birthday, by Henri Jeanson, like the Académie française, names new members annually and sponsors the "Alphonse Allais" literary prize.
Principal works
À se tordre, 1891
Vive la vie !, 1892
Deux et deux font cinq, 1895
Amours, délices et orgues, 1898
L'Affaire Blaireau, 1899
Ne nous frappons pas, 1900
English translations published in the United States
Pink and Apple-Green Translated by Doug Skinner
The Alphonse Allais Reader. Compiled and translated by Doug Skinner
