52 BC Caesar writes Gallic War
In his winter quarters Julius Caesar writes The Gallic War, an account of his own achievements in suppressing the Gauls

591 Gregory writes history of Franks
Gregory, bishop of Tours, brings his 'History of the Franks' up to this year

950 Eddas in Iceland
The material of the Eddas, taking shape in Iceland, derives from earlier sources in Norway, Britain and Burgundy

1102 Chansons de geste
The chansons de geste, performed by professional minstrels in castles and manors, celebrate the exploits of Charlemagne and his paladins

1120 Troubadours and courtly love
The troubadours of Provence develop a new form of love poetry in French, introducing courtly love

1130 Chanson de Roland
A popular French poem, the Chanson de Roland, turns a minor disaster in one of Charlemagne's campaigns into a tale of epic heroism

1160 French authors make hero of Arthur
Chrétien de Troyes and other French authors turn the stories of Arthur and his knights into a romance of courtly love

1461 Villon remembers ladies of time past
Francois Villon, recently released from prison, writes his Ballad of the Ladies of Times Past

1532 Rabelais publishes Pantagruel
François Rabelais publishes Pantagruel, the first to appear of his five books about the giant Pantagruel and his father Gargantua

1549 Du Bellay and the Pléiade
Joachim du Bellay publishes a manifesto for the group of new French poets who become known as the Pléiade

1550 Ronsard's Odes
Pierre de Ronsard publishes the first four books of his Odes

1580 Western world gets the essay
French author Michel de Montaigne, in his library tower, produces Europe's first volume of essays – published in this year under the simple title Essais

1637 Corneille's Le Cid
Pierre Corneille's play Le Cid, popular with Paris audiences, hinges on the conflict between duty and love

1644 Descartes thinks so he is
In his Principles of Philosophy Descartes gives priority to reason, summed up in his famous phrase cogito ergo sum

1650 Descartes catches chill
Descartes catches a fatal chill, returning home in midwinter from pre-dawn instruction of Queen Christina of Sweden

1667 Racine's Andromaque
French dramatist Jean Racine's first great success, Andromaque, finds tragic drama in a quadrangle of love

1673 Molière no malade imaginaire
Molière falls fatally ill when acting in his own play Le Malade Imaginaire

1733 Voltaire approves of England
Voltaire publishes a series of Philosophical Letters comparing the French unfavourably with England

1751 French launch encyclopedia
A great French undertaking by Denis Diderot, his 28-volume Encyclopédie, begins publication

1759 Candide hopes for the best
Voltaire publishes Candide, a satire on optimism prompted by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755

1762 Calls for Rousseau's arrest
Two books in this year, Émile and Du Contrat Social, prompt orders for the arrest of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

1775 Figaro here to stay
Figaro makes his first appearance on stage in Beaumarchais' The Barber of Seville

1789 What is the Third Estate?
A pamphlet published in France by Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès asks a challenging question, What is the Third Estate?

1792 Paine moves to France
Thomas Paine moves hurriedly to France, to escape a charge of treason in England for opinions expressed in his Rights of Man

1812 Stendhal in French army
The French author Stendhal serves in the French army during the invasion of Russia

1830 Hernani
Victor Hugo's romantic drama Hernani provokes a riot in the Paris audience on the first night

1830 Le Rouge et Le Noir
French author Stendhal publishes his novel Le Rouge et Le Noir ('The Red and the Black')

1831 Hunchback of Notre Dame
Victor Hugo publishes his novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in which the hunchback, Quasimodo, is obsessed with Esmeralda

1835 Balzac publishes Le Père Goriot
French author Honoré de Balzac publishes Le Père Goriot, one of the key novels that he later includes in La Comédie Humaine

1835 Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville publishes in French the first two volumes of his extremely influential study Democracy in America

1842 Start of La Comédie Humaine
Honoré de Balzac begins publication of a collected edition of his fiction under the title La Comédie Humaine

1848 Completion of La Comédie Humaine
Honoré de Balzac completes publication of La Comédie Humaine, a 17-volume collected edition of his numerous novels and stories

1856 Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert publishes Madame Bovary, a novel of frustrated romanticism in a provincial French context

1857 Les Fleurs du Mal
Charles Baudelaire publishes his first and extremely influential collection of poems, Les Fleurs du Mal

1859 La Chartreuse de Parme
French author Stendhal publishes his novel La Chartreuse de Parme ('The Charterhouse of Parma')

1862 Hugo publishes Les Misérables
Victor Hugo publishes his novel Les Misérables, an immensely complex story about the adventures of ex-convict Jean Valjean

1867 Verlaine's Poémes saturniens
French author Paul Verlaine wins a reputation with his first published collection, Poémes saturniens ('Saturnine Poems')

1870 Rimbaud sends poems to Verlaine
16-year-old Arthur Rimbaud sends some of his poems to Paul Verlaine, already an established poet

1871 Zola begins, Les Rougon-Macquart
French author Émile Zola publishes The Fortune of the Rougons, the first in a 20-novel series that he calls Les Rougon-Macquart

1872 Verlaine and Rimbaud live together in Brussels
Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud move together to Brussels, and then to London, where they live a dissolute bohemian existence

1873 Verlaine imprisoned
Verlaine is sentenced to two years in prison, at Mons in Belgium, after shooting and wounding Rimbaud in a drunken rage in Brussels

1880 Bouvard et Pécuchet
Gustave Flaubert dies, with his novel Bouvard et Pécuchet incomplete

1884 Verlaine's Poètes maudits
Verlaine publishes Les Poètes maudits, short studies of various 'cursed poets' – including Rimbaud

1898 Zola declares: 'J'accuse!'
Émile Zola sends an open letter to the French president, headed 'J'accuse!', drawing attention to the injustice done to Alfred Dreyfus

1903 Gertrude Stein moves to Paris
Gertrude Stein leaves the USA to share with her brother an apartment in Paris that soon becomes a literary and artistic salon

1903 Prix Goncourt
The annual Prix Goncourt is established in France, in accordance with the will of Edmond de Goncourt

1907 Stein meets Toklas
Gertrude Stein meets Alice B. Toklas, who becomes her secretary and lifelong companion

1908 Anatole France's Penguin Island
Anatole France casts a satirical eye on human society in his novel L'Île des pingouins ("Penguin Island")

1909 Gide's La Porte étroite
André Gide publishes La Porte étroite ('Strait is the Gate')

1913 Le Grand Meaulnes
Alain-Fournier completes his semi-autobiographical novel Le Grand Meaulnes

1913 Proust's Swann's Way
Marcel Proust publishes at his own expense Swann's Way, the first volume of Remembrance of Things Past

1916 Saussure pioneers structuralism
In his Course in General Linguistics Ferdinand de Saussure provides the basis for the broader development of structuralism

1916 Saki killed in France
The author H.H. Munro ('Saki') is killed by a sniper's bullet on a battlefield in France

1917 Valéry's La Jeune Parque
Paul Valéry wins praise for his long symbolic poem La Jeune Parque

1919 Aragon and Breton promote surrealism
French poets Louis Aragon and André Breton launch Littérature, a surrealist review

1920 Colette's Chéri
After several less successful novels, the French writer Colette makes her reputation with Chéri

1922 Ulysses published in Paris
James Joyce's novel Ulysses is published in Paris, by Sylvia Beach, because of censorship problems elsewhere

1922 Valéry's 'Cimetière marin'
Valéry's collection Charmes includes probably his best-known poem, 'Le Cimetière marin'

1926 Gide's Counterfeiters
French author André Gide publishes his only novel, The Counterfeiters

1927 Thérèse Desqueyroux
French author François Mauriac publishes a novel of marital claustrophobia, Thérèse Desqueyroux

1929 Les Enfants Terribles
French author Jean Cocteau publishes Les Enfants Terribles, a novel about a brother and sister in a suffocatingly claustrophobic relationsip

1932 Anouilh's first play
French playwright Jean Anouilh has his first play, L'Hermine, produced and published

1933 Gertrude credits Alice with her autobiography
Gertrude Stein publishes a best-selling account of her own life under the title The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

1934 Tropic of Cancer
US author Henry Miller publishes in Paris a largely sexual autobiography, Tropic of Cancer, about his life as an expatriate

1938 First novel makes Sartre famous
French writer Jean-Paul Sartre succeeds with his first novel, La Nausée ('Nausea')

1939 Tropic of Capricorn
US author Henry Miller publishes in Paris Tropic of Capricorn, about his adolescence in New York

1942 Camus' The Outsider
French author Albert Camus creates an early anti-hero in his novel The Outsider (L'Étranger)

1942 Marguerite Duras' The Sea Wall
French author Marguerite Duras makes her name with her partly autobiographical novel The Sea Wall

1943 Sartre defines existentialism
French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre expounds his theory of existentialism in Being and Nothingness ('L'Être et le néant')

1943 Sartre writes for the theatre
Jean-Paul Sartre begins a new career as a dramatist with his first play, The Flies ('Les Mouches')

1949 Genet's Thief's Journal
French ex-convict Jean Genet begins his literary career with an autobiographical Thief's Journal

1949 The Second Sex
French author Simone de Beauvoir publishes The Second Sex, a widely influential feminist polemic

1949 Elementary Structures of Kinship
French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss publishes Elementary Structures of Kinship

1950 The Bald Prima Donna
French dramatist Eugène Ionesco's play The Bald Prima Donna launches the Theatre of the Absurd

1953 Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot ('En attendant Godot') is first performed in French in Paris

1954 Bonjour Tristesse
19-year-old Françoise Sagan has a major international success with her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse

1957 Barthes' Mythologies
French critic Roland Barthes develops in Mythologies the theory of semiotics, relating to signs and symbols

1958 Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita is published in Paris

1994 Art has Berlin prremiere
Art, a play by French-born Iranian playwright Yasmina Reza, has its premiere in Berlin