A talk by Professor A. G. Lehmann on Prosper Merimee's letters to Ivan Turgenev, published recently
Mérimée, like other notable French novelists of the nineteenth century, was an inexhaustible letter-writer. In the latter part of his life, which spanned two republics and the reigns of three kings and two emperors, he corresponded with the Russian novelist Turgenev, and discussed with him everything from court gossip to Russian literature.