Le Jardin d’Epicure

In 1894, Anatole France’s unpublished newspaper columns, written for Le Temps and L’Écho de Paris, provided enough material for a new volume. This became Le Jardin d’Épicure, gathering articles that had appeared in Le Temps under Adrien Hébrard: aphorisms tinged with a bitter, skeptical tone: “Our view of the universe is purely the effect of the nightmare of that troubled sleep which is life… It is clear that we can know nothing, that everything deceives us, and that nature cruelly mocks our ignorance and our foolishness.”
Published on 7 November 1894, the text was issued in a deluxe printing of 20 copies on Japanese paper and 50 copies on Holland paper.