{{Short description|French playwright (1882–1971)}} thumb|Charles Vildrac and his wife in 1926 '''Charles Vildrac''' (November 22, 1882 – June 25, 1971), born "'''Charles Messager'''",<ref name=boy72>''1971 Britannica Book of the Year'' (for events of 1971), "Obituaries 1971" article, page 532, "Vildrac, Charles" item</ref> was a French libertarian playwright, poet and author of what some consider the first modern children's novel, ''L'Île rose'' (1924).
Born in Paris, Vildrac's first poems were written when he was a teenager in the 1890s. In 1901 he published ''Le Verlibrisme'', a defense of traditional verse. In 1912 he published a collection of prose poems.<ref name=boy72/>
He was a member of the Abbaye de Créteil which he founded with Georges Duhamel. He died in Saint-Tropez.
The Prix de poésie Charles Vildrac is named for him.
==Works== * ''Poèmes (1905)'' * ''Images et mirages'' (1907), poems * ''Livre d'amour'' (1910), poems * ''Notes sur la technique poétique'' (1910), ''Notes on Poetic Technique'', with Georges Duhamel * ''Chants du désespéré (1914–20)'' (1920), ''Songs of a Desperate Man'', poems * ''Découverte'' (1912), ''récit'' novel * ''Chants du désespéré'' (1920), poems * ''Le Paquebot Tenacity'' (1920; lit. ''S.S. Tenacity''), theatre play * ''L'Indigent'' (1920), theatre play * ''Michel Auclair'' (1921) * ''L'Île rose'' (1924), children's novel, lit. ''The Pink Island'', translated as ''Rose Island'' * ''Poèmes de l'Abbaye'' (1925), poems * ''Madame Béliard'' (1925), theatre play * ''Prolongement'' (1927), poems * ''D’un voyage au Japon'' (1927), travel story * ''La Brouille'' (1930), ''The Misunderstanding'', theatre play * ''La Colonie'' (1930), children's novel (sequel to ''L'Île rose'') * ''Les Lunettes du lion'' (1932), children's tale * ''La famille Moineau'' (1932), children's tale * ''Le Jardinier de Samos'' (1932), theatre play * ''Milot'' (1933), children's tale * ''Bridinette'' (1935), children's tale * ''Poucette'' (1936), theatre play * ''L'œuvre peinte d'Eugène Dabit'' (1937), monographie * ''Russie neuve'' (1938), travel story * ''L'Air du temps'' (1938), theatre play * ''Trois mois de prison'' (1942) * ''L'Honneur des poètes'' (1943), volume of poems published by the French Resistance; Vildrac's contribution appears under the pseudonym Robert Barade * ''Lazare'' (1945), in ''Chroniques de Minuit'', Les Éditions de Minuit, p. 15-39 * ''Les Pères ennemis'' (1946), ''The Enemy Fathers'', theatre play * ''D'après l'écho'' (1949) * ''Amadou le Bouquillon'' (1951), children's tale * ''Les Jouets du Père Noël'' (1952), ''The Toys of Father Christmas'' * ''Pages de journal'' (1968)
==Notes and references== <references/> * France, Peter (Ed.) (1995). ''The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press. {{ISBN|0-19-866125-8}}.
==External links== * [http://www.blackcatpoems.com/v/charles_vildrac.html Poems by Charles Vildrac]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Vildrac}} Category:1882 births Category:1971 deaths Category:French male poets Category:20th-century French poets Category:20th-century French male writers
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