An exemplary published, model father, hero of his own novel - Aspects of Pierre-Jules Hetzel (1814-1886) (P.J. Stahl)

Pierre-Jules Hetzel(1814-1886), himself an author under the pseudonym P. -J . Stahl, epitomises the figure of the triumphant 19th-century publisher. Hi s taste for picture and his narcissism led him to indulge in having portrai ts of himself printed in the illustrated books he published. From a triangu lar correspondence which dates back to 1884, when Jules Verne was writing h is novel Mathias Sandorf, and which was exchanged by the author, the publis her, and the illustrator, Leon Benett, it is apparent that, having rejected the first sketches for the eponymous character, Hetzel finally had his own features given to the "proud and noble-looking" hero. Hetzel also appears as the father-character in various Stahl "early-age" picture books, written by himself, illustrated by Lorentz Froehlich or Jean Geoffroy, and pre-pub lished in his Magasin d'education et de recreation before they were printed as Christmas gift books. As young Alsa puts it in the 1876 album, Les Trav aux d'Alsa, looking at his photograph, "He looks nice." Thus was Hetzel a h ighly powerful publisher, an author, the editorial manager of a magazine, a nd a model all in one.