Maurice Léon Bazalgette (8 May 1873 – 31 December 1928) was a French literary critic, biographer and translator. His translations of the works of Walt Whitman introduced Whitman to the French public.^[3]

In 1905, through Émile Verhaeren, he became acquainted with Stefan Zweig. Zweig recounts their friendship in his memoir, The World of Yesterday.

In 1908, he published a biography of Walt Whitman, "Whitman, the man and the work". In 1909, he published a translation of Leaves of Grass. In 1924 he published a biography of Henry David Thoreau, Henry Thoreau, Sauvage.

Bazalgette frequented the Abbaye de Créteil, a community of artists founded by Georges Duhamel and Charles Vildrac. He wrote for Clarté, La Vie Ouvrière, and from 1926 to 1928 he had a column in communist newspaper L'Humanité.^[4]

He is buried in the cemetery of Avernes-sous-Exmes, Orne, where he owned a country house, the Moulin des Noës.

References