{{Short description|French writer and photographer (1822–1894)}} {{Expand French|topic=bio|date=August 2010|Maxime Du Camp}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2026}} {{Infobox person | name = Maxime Du Camp | image = Maxime Du Camp.jpg | caption = Maxime Du Camp (between 1850 and 1870) | birth_name = Maxime Du Camp | birth_date = {{Birth date|1822|2|8|df=y}} | death_date = {{Death date and age|1894|2|9|1822|2|8|df=y}} | birth_place = Paris, France | death_place = Baden-Baden, German Empire | resting_place = Montmartre Cemetery | | occupation = Writer and photographer | movement = Realism and Late Romanticism }}
'''Maxime Du Camp''' (8 February 1822 – 9 February 1894) was a French writer and photographer. thumb|right|Bust of Maxime Du Camp. thumb|Stele of Karnak, Egypt, about 1850. Photo taken by Du Camp
==Biography==
Born in Paris, Du Camp was the son of a successful surgeon. After finishing college, he indulged in his strong desire for travel, thanks to his father's assets. Du Camp traveled in Europe and the East between 1844 and 1845, and again between 1849 and 1851 in company with Gustave Flaubert. After his return, Du Camp wrote about his traveling experiences. Flaubert also wrote about his experiences with Maxime.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zUJrIVDLxtMC&pg=PA191 |title=Rage and Fire: A Life of Louise Colet—Pioneer, Feminist, Literary Star, Flaubert's Muse|author=Francine Du Plessix Gray|year=1995|publisher=Simon and Schuster|page=192|isbn=0-684-80453-0|access-date=2010-08-07}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/lettersofgustave0001flau |url-access=registration |title=The Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830–1857|author=Gustave Flaubert, Francis Steegmüller|year=1980|publisher=Harvard University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/lettersofgustave0001flau/page/112 112]|isbn=0-674-52636-8|access-date=2010-08-07}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/poxgeniusmadness0000hayd |url-access=registration |title=Pox: genius, madness, and the mysteries of syphilis|author=Deborah Hayden|year=2003|publisher=Basic Books|page=[https://archive.org/details/poxgeniusmadness0000hayd/page/138 138]|isbn=0-465-02881-0|access-date=2010-08-07}}</ref>
In 1851, Du Camp became a founder of the ''Revue de Paris'' (suppressed in 1858), in which his friend Flaubert's Madame Bovary was first published in serialised form in 1856, as well as a frequent contributor to the ''Revue des deux mondes''. In 1853, he became an officer of the Legion of Honour. Serving as a volunteer with Garibaldi in his 1860 conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Du Camp recounted his experiences in ''Expédition des deux Siciles'' (1861). In 1870 he was nominated for the senate, but his election was frustrated by the downfall of the Empire. He was elected a member of the Académie française in 1880, mainly, it is said, on account of his history of the Commune, published under the title of ''Les Convulsions de Paris'' (1878–1880).
Du Camp was an early amateur photographer who learned the craft from Gustave Le Gray shortly prior to departing on his 1849–1859 trip to Egypt.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1981.1229.2|title=Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|access-date=31 March 2011}}</ref> His travel books were among the first to be illustrated with photographs.
Du Camp, the most famous traveller of his time, was the dedicatee of the final poem, ''Le Voyage'', written in 1859, from Baudelaire's ''Les Fleurs du Mal''. Du Camp's 1855 poetry collection, ''Les Chants Modernes'', includes a poem titled ''Le Voyageur''. Baudelaire's original title for ''Le Voyage'' was ''Les Voyageurs''. The original title has obvious echoes of Du Camp’s poem.<ref>Alexandra Smith, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, Towards Poetics of Exile, Ars Interpres, No. 2</ref>
Maxime Du Camp died in 1894 and was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris.
==Works== thumb|''Expédition des Deux-Siciles'', 1861
*''Chants modernes'' (1855) *''Convictions'' (1858) Works on travel: *''Souvenirs et paysages d'orient'' (1848) *''Egypte, Nubie, Palestine, Syrie'' (1852) Works of art criticism: *''Les Salons de 1857, 1859, 1861'' Novels: *''L'Homme au bracelet d'or'' (1862) *''Une histoire d'amour'' (1889) Literary studies: *''Théophile Gautier'' (1890)<ref>{{cite book|title=Théophile Gautier|author=Du Camp, Maxime|series=Les grands écrivains français |year=1890|publisher=Hachette|location=Paris|url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001795980}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Review of ''Théophile Gautier'' by Maxime Du Camp, translated by J. E. Gordon, preface by Andrew Lang|journal=The Academy|date=28 October 1893|volume=44|issue=1121|pages=362–363|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x030236816;view=1up;seq=378}}</ref>
Du Camp authored a valuable 6-volume book on the daily life of Paris, ''Paris, ses organes, ses fonctions, sa vie dans la seconde moitié du XIX<sup>e</sup> siècle'' (1869–1875).<ref>{{cite book|author=Du Camp, Maxime|title=Paris, ses organes, ses fonctions, sa vie dans la seconde moitié du XIX<sup>e</sup> siècle|location=Paris|publisher=Hachette|edition=deuxième|url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100331150|postscript=;}} 6 vols., 1873–1875</ref> He published several works on social questions, one of which, the ''Auteurs de mon temps'', was to be kept sealed in the Bibliothèque Nationale until 1910. His ''Souvenirs littéraires'' (2 vols., 1882–1883)<ref>{{cite book|title=Souvenirs littéraires|author=Du Camp, Maxime |location=Paris | publisher=Hachette |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100324062|postscript=;}} 2 vols., 1882–1883</ref> contain much information about contemporary writers, especially Gustave Flaubert, of whom Du Camp was an early and intimate friend. In 1878, he published an account of the Paris Commune called ''Les Convulsions de Paris'', drawing from articles on the subject he had written for the ''Revue des deux mondes''.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F-I_AQAAMAAJ&dq=maxime+du+camp&pg=PA210| title=Du Camp's 'Convulsions of Paris'| publisher=The Nation| date=1878-03-08| access-date=2023-01-09| pages=210–211}}</ref>
==References== {{French literature sidebar}} {{Reflist}} *{{EB1911|wstitle=Du Camp, Maxime}}
== External links == {{wikisource|works=or}} {{Commons category}} * [https://primo-slnsw.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=SLNSW_ALMA21129151200002626&context=L&vid=SLNSW&search_scope=EEA&tab=default_tab&lang=en_US Maxime du Camp's literary recollections], 1893, by Maxime du Camp at the [http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/ State Library of New South Wales] * [https://primo-slnsw.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=SLNSW_ALMA21151864210002626&context=L&vid=SLNSW&search_scope=EEA&tab=default_tab&lang=en_US Souvenirs d'un demi-siècle], 1949, by Maxime du Camp at the [http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/ State Library of New South Wales] * [https://primo-slnsw.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=SLNSW_ALMA2192773060002626&context=L&vid=SLNSW&search_scope=EEA&tab=default_tab&lang=en_US Mémoires d'un suicidé], 1855, by Maxime du Camp at the [http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/ State Library of New South Wales] * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Maxime Du Camp}} * {{Librivox author |id=11154}}
{{Académie française Seat 33}} {{Early French photographers}} {{Authority control (arts)}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Du Camp, Maxime}} Category:1822 births Category:1894 deaths Category:Photographers from Paris Category:Members of the Académie Française Category:French travel writers Category:French literary critics Category:19th-century French photographers Category:Officers of the Legion of Honour Category:Burials at Montmartre Cemetery Category:19th-century French journalists Category:19th-century French novelists Category:French male poets Category:French male novelists Category:19th-century French poets Category:19th-century French memoirists Category:People of the Paris Commune Category:Photographers in Palestine (region) Category:French recipients of the Legion of Honour Category:19th-century French male journalists