1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dennery, Adolphe

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6246831911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 8 — Dennery, Adolphe

DENNERY, or D’Ennery, ADOLPHE (1811–1899), French dramatist and novelist, whose real surname was Philippe, was born in Paris on the 17th of June 1811. He obtained his first success in collaboration with Charles Desnoyer in Émile, ou le fils d’un pair de France (1831), a drama which was the first of a series of some two hundred pieces written alone or in collaboration with other dramatists. Among the best of them may be mentioned Gaspard Hauser (1838) with Anicet Bourgeois; Les Bohémiens de Paris (1842) with Eugène Grangé; with Mallian, Marie-Jeanne, ou la femme du peuple (1845), in which Madame Dorval obtained a great success; La Case d’Oncle Tom (1853); Les Deux Orphelines (1875), perhaps his best piece, with Eugène Cormon. He wrote the libretto for Gounod’s Tribut de Zamora (1881); with Louis Gallet and Édouard Blan he composed the book of Massenet’s Cid (1885); and, again in collaboration with Eugène Cormon, the books of Auber’s operas, Le Premier Jour de bonheur (1868) and Rêve d’amour (1869). He prepared for the stage Balzac’s posthumous comedy Mercadet ou le faiseur, presented at the Gymnase theatre in 1851. Reversing the usual order of procedure, Dennery adapted some of his plays to the form of novels. He died in Paris in 1899.