the last of which also specifically mentions de Kock's novel The Girl with the Three Pairs of Stays. In Thackeray's Pendennis, the title character of the book remarks that he had read nothing of the "novel kind" for thirty years, except Paul de Kock, who certainly made him laugh. The 1920 Encyclopedia Americana attributes his popularity abroad to his style, which it describes as his "worst feature . . . barely presentable, a fault evidently due to deficiency of education. . . . the defects of style disappear in translation." The 1905 New International Encyclopædia describes his stories as "rather vulgar, but not immoral, demanding no literary training and gratifying no delicate taste". By this time he was seldom mentioned in the more conventional French histories of French literature. Anne O'Neil-Henry, a modern academic who has taken an interest in de Kock, calls him "the July Monarchy's bourgeois writer par excellence," but that "by the 1830s his name carried a specific connotation: 'Paul de Kock' signified 'bad' literature, a sort of … marker of poor taste." However, she clarifies, "while critics around 1830 began to use his name synonymously with lowbrow literature, many of their reviews evinced an appreciation of some elements of his work and recognition of his successful command of the taste of modern readers. Simply put, 'Paul de Kock' did not always signify 'Paul de Kock'." Works Paul de Kock wrote about 100 volumes. With the exception of a few excursions into historical romance and some miscellaneous works of which his share in La Grande yule, Paris (1842), is the chief, they are all stories of middle-class Parisian life, of guinguettes and cabarets and equivocal adventures of one sort or another. The most famous are André le Savoyard (1825) and Le Barbier de Paris (1826). The stories are full of observation at first hand and of spicy humor. Typical examples of his work are: Gustave le mauvais sujet (1821) Frère Jacques (1822) La laitière de Montfermeil (1827) Monsieur Dupont (1825) Un Tourlouron (1837) La femme, le mari et l'amant (1829) Le cocu (1831) La pucelle de Belleville (1834) A 56-volume edition of his works came out in 1884. He has had imitators, among them his son Henri (1819–92). Further reading Paul de Kock, Mémoires (1873) Th. Trimm, La vie de Charles Paul de Kock (Paris, 1873) Notes External links 1867 Caricature of Charles Paul de Kock by