Anatole France (pseudonym for Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault), was a writer, critic, and one of the major figures of French literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921. At the Sign of the Reine Pedauque is his most celebrated novel; a vast tableau of life in 18th century France. The central figure of the novel, the Abbe Coignard, a complex, ironical and lovable character, reappears in Les Opinions de Jerome Coignard and The Well of Saint Claire.