Andre Linville (1888-1954)

Pseudonym of André Marie L'Heureux
Author, Journalist, Editor
Born October 20, 1888, Paris, France
Died October 10, 1954, Paris, France

I know very little of André Linville, and what I write here comes from several different sources, most of which are in French. I hope that what I write is correct. Maybe a French reader of this posting can offer something more.

André Linville was the nom de plume of André Marie L'Heureux, a French author, journalist, and editor born on October 20, 1888, in Paris, France. Under that nom de plume, L'Heureux coauthored a book called La Boxe, traité pratique et complet with Jacques Mortane (1883-1939), published in 1908.

In 1914, an utterly disastrous war came to Europe. Like his countrymen, Linville played his part, although I can't say for sure that he was a combatant. In 1916, however, he founded and became editor of a publication called in some sources Journal des Combattants et des mutilés, a title that I translate as Journal of Combatants and the Mutilated. It was later called Journal des Fighters. Linville directed the magazine until his death.

I believe Linville ran for political office after the war. He was instrumental in the enacting of a law from 1919 that led to a later Pension Code in France. He also created a patriotic association called Flamme de la Nation in 1934. It was probably not by coincidence that Adolf Hitler had risen to power in Germany in the previous year.

In 1935, Editions Chantel of Paris issued André Linville's collection La Dernière traversée et autres récits (The Last Crossing and Other Stories). There are seven stories in the collection. The title story is the same as one called "The Last Voyage," which was published in English in The Grand Magazine in August 1917. The last story in La Dernière traversée et autres récits is called "T.S.F." That story was translated and reprinted in Weird Tales as "Dead Man's Schooner" in December 1939, only three months after Europe had once again gone to war.

Following is a list of the contents of La Dernière traversée et autres récits, as well as further information on the book and its stories. This information is from a website called Le Visage Vert: Littérature fantastique, accessible by clicking here. I have slightly altered the formatting from the original. The translations in brackets are my own.

La Dernière traversée et autres récits (Paris: Editions Chantel, 1935 [juillet]), 253 p.

[Summary]:

"La Dernière traversée" ["The Last Crossing"]

"L'Oiseau sans ailes" ["The Bird without Wings"]
"Une minute de plus" ["One More Minute"]
"Le Raid de Jacques Fromental" ["The Raid of Jacques Fromental"]
"Le 7 mai 1915" ["May 7, 1915"--the date of the sinking of the Lusitania]
"Le Mystère du Philippe-Grandier" ["The Mystery of Philippe-Grandier"]
"T.S.F."

Deux présentations, 1 avec couv. ill., l'autre sans. EO: 50 ex. sur vélin pur fil des papéteries d'Arches ntés de 1 à 50 et 300 ex. sur Alfa Prioux ntés de 51 à 350.

[Stories]:

"La Dernière traversée"
— in Lecture pour Tous, 15 mars 1917, p. 826-837, ill. R. Wallace.
— in [Linville] La Dernière traversée et autres récits (Paris: Editions Chantel, 1935).

"L'Oiseau sans ailes"
— in Lecture pour Tous, août 1921, p. 1481-1488, ill. Lanos
— in [Linville] La Dernière traversée et autres récits (Paris: Editions Chantel, 1935).

"T.S.F."
— in [Linville] La Dernière traversée et autres récits (Paris: Editions Chantel, 1935), p. 241-253.
— in Weird Tales, décembre 1939, sous le titre «Dead Man's Schooner».

— in Jour de l'an chez les momies & autres contes surnaturels et de merveilleux scientifique (Élancourt: Le Visage Vert), mars 1987, p. 31-33. Présentation et bibliographie p. ii.

[End of summary.]

Lecture pour Tous was a French magazine in print from the late 1800s until 1940.

Updates:

Pierre-François Toulze has kindly provided André Linville's year of death, 1954. See his comment below. Thank you, M. Toulze. Update (Dec. 5, 2021): Randal A. Everts has provided the exact date, October 10, 1954, making Linville at his death sixty-five years old. Thank you, RAE.

André Linville's Story in Weird Tales

"Dead Man's Schooner" (Dec. 1939)

Further Reading

If you search the Internet, you're likely to find the same sources I have found. Even the French version of Wikipedia seems to be lacking in information on Linville. Here is a link to a death notice for André Linville from a French newspaper, Le lien, from November 1954:

https://argonnaute.parisnanterre.fr/medias/customer_3/periodique/Stalag/FP_RES_408b/PDF/BDIC_FPR_00408_1954_077.pdf

Thanks to RAE for finding this source.

A photograph of the author, editor, and journalist André Linville. The caption for the photo reads: "[Portrait de] M. [André] Linville [candidat aux élections législatives sur la liste Union des gauches et des anciens combattants de Seine et Oise]: [photographie de presse]/[Agence Rol]." Translation: "[Portrait of] Mr. [André] Linville [parliamentary candidate on the ticket of the Union of the Left and Veterans of the Seine and Oise]: [press photograph]/[Agence Rol]." I have modified the Google translation and hope I have done it correctly. Linville's membership in the Veterans of the Seine and Oise suggests that he was in fact a combatant during World War I, or at least that he had been in uniform.

Thanks to Le Visage Vert: Littérature fantastique for providing the information. Thanks also to Pierre-François Toulze and Randal A. Everts for further information.
Original text and captions copyright 2014, 2023 Terence E. Hanley