<p>Alphonse Daudet''s novels established him as the most successful writer in France by the end of the XIX century; but it was the LETTERS, first published in book form in 1869, which remained his favourite creation and has proved his most lasting. <br><br>Throughout his working life in Paris Daudet never lost his almost umbilical attachment to Provence. These tales of that region are characterised by a tenderness and delicacy, a wistfulness and wry humour, which give moving substance to his claim that to invent, for him, was to remember.</p>