A novelist and grandson of Lacretelle jeune (1766-1855), educated in Paris and Cambridge, he published his first novel La Vie inquiète de Jean Hermelin in 1920. It was followed by Silbermann (1922), a study of a young Jew whose racial precociousness is at odds with the spirit of French culture. Les Hauts-Ponts (1932-1935), a long novel of provincial life, definitely established his reputation. Other novels by this author are: La Bonifas (1925); Amour nuptial (1929); Le Retour de Silbermann (1930), originally intended as one book and continuing the Silbermann theme, and Le Pour et le contre (1946). This last contains pictures of literary life in Paris between 1918 and 1939. (extrapolated from The Oxford Companion to French Literature, Oxford, 1986, 384)