Editing Catulle Mendès (section)

==Early life and career==
Of Portuguese Jewish extraction, Mendès was born in [[Bordeaux]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10668-mendes-catulle |title=Mendès, Catulle |publisher=JewishEncyclopedia.com |date= |accessdate=13 December 2013}}</ref> After childhood and adolescence in Toulouse, he arrived in Paris in 1859 and quickly became one of the protégés of the poet [[Théophile Gautier]]. He promptly attained notoriety with the publication in the ''[[La Revue fantaisiste]]'' (1861) of his ''Roman d'une nuit'', for which he was condemned to a month's imprisonment and a fine of 500 francs. He was allied with [[Parnassianism]] from the beginning of the movement and displayed extraordinary metrical skill in his first volume of poems, ''Philoméla'' (1863). His critics have noted that the elegant verse of his later volumes is distinguished rather by dexterous imitation of different writers than by any marked originality. The versatility and fecundity of Mendès' talent is shown in his critical and dramatic writings, including several libretti, and in his novels and short stories. His short stories continue the French tradition of the licentious ''conte''.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Mendès, Catulle|volume=18|pages=124–125}} The bibliography is partly derived from this article.</ref>

In his early period, Mendès sometimes published under the pseudonym Jacques Rollin.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/avantlagloirele02almgoog/page/n99/mode/1up Henri d'Alméras, Avant la gloire: leurs débuts, 1e série (1902), p. 91]</ref><ref>[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6142370v.image.r=Rollin.f54.hl Annuaire de la presse française,  1885, p. XIV]</ref>