Joseph Méry

Joseph Méry was a Marseille journalist who became one of the most fluent writers in Paris, turning out novels, verse, travel books, plays and criticism with a facility that impressed his contemporaries more than it has survived them. He made his name under the Restoration with the political verse satires he wrote alongside Auguste Barthélemy, and was celebrated in the salons as an improviser who could produce rhymed verse to order. Gautier and Dumas were friends. He was at work on the libretto of Don Carlos when he died, and Camille du Locle finished it.