Georges Duval


Georges-Louis-Jacques Labiche, better known as Georges Duval, was an early 19th-century French playwright.

Biography

Duval was originally expected to become a priest, but the French Revolution occurred when he was 17. Afterwards he joined a notary and began at the same time writing plays for small theaters. From 1805 to 1835, he was employed in public service as an office manager at the Interior Ministry, which left him time to devote to playwriting under the pen name Georges Duval. Working especially for small theaters, for which he wrote 70 plays, Duval composed a large number of Comédie en vaudevilles, including many in collaboration with Gouffé, Vieillard, Dumersan, Desaugiers, Dorvigny, Rochefort, Gaëtan, Dossion, P. G. A. Bonel, Servières, Thomas Tournay, Chazet and Rouel. His Pièce qui n'en est pas une was a kind of parade that was played both in society salons and on stage, and has often been imitated since.
In a more serious genre, Duval published a Dictionnaire abrégé des mythologies de tous les peuples policés ou barbares, tant anciens que modernes, as well as his Souvenirs de la Terreur and Souvenirs thermidoriens, works in which he attacked the French revolution.

Works

Theatre