Chateaubriand’s Mémoires d’outre-tombe [Memoirs from Beyond the Tomb]*, sometimes said to be his best work, are a miscellany of memoirs and other material in 42 Books totalling over 2,400 pages in one modern edition. Though dauntingly complex at first sight, the text is in practice simpler than it appears. Chateaubriand composed and revised it intermittently from an uncertain date (1809?) until final revision in 1846. Composition and revisions were interspersed with pauses, often for travel, other writing, or politics. By 1817, he had completed three Books on his origins and youth. Initially united under the title Mémoires de ma vie [Memoirs of my Life], they were later recast as the first three Books of the Mémoires d’outre-tombe, and here we consider them only in this latter form. (Some editors reproduce the Mémoires de ma vie...
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Citation: Morrison, Ian. "Mémoires d'outre-tombe". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 June 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11160, accessed 13 June 2026.]
