Trained as a
paleographer and archivist, he brought to his works a spirit of objectivity and a scrupulous regard for detail, and because of his concern with documentation and the relationship of social reality to individual development, his fiction has been linked with the
realist and
naturalist traditions of the 19th century. His sympathy for the humanist
socialism and pacifism of
Jean Jaurès is evident in his work. He is best known for
The Thibaults, a multi-volume
roman fleuve which follows the fortunes of two brothers, Antoine and Jacques Thibault, from their upbringing in a prosperous Catholic bourgeois family to the end of the
World War I. Six parts of the novel were published between 1922 and 1929. After abandoning a seventh volume in manuscript, he published two more volumes in 1936 and 1940. Written under the shadow of the darkening international situation in Europe in the 1930s, these last parts, which together are longer than the previous six combined, focus on the political and historical situation leading up to the outbreak of the First World War and bring the story to 1918. Du Gard wrote several other novels, including
Jean Barois, which was set against the historical context of the
Dreyfus affair. During
World War II, he resided in
Nice, where he prepared a novel
(Souvenirs du lieutenant-colonel de Maumort) which remained unfinished at his death. It was posthumously published in 1983. His other works include plays and a memoir of
André Gide, a longtime friend. Du Gard died in 1958 in
Sérigny and was buried in the Cimiez Monastery Cemetery in
Cimiez, a suburb of the city of
Nice, France. ==Partial bibliography==