The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard is the first novel by Anatole France published in 1881. With this work one of his first written entirely in prose he made himself known as a novelist; he had been primarily known as a poet affiliated with Parnassianism because of his book of poetry Poèmes dorés which imitated Parnassian type verse. The novel contains two stories. In the first "La Buche" Sylvestre Bonnard a member of the Institut de France is a historian and philologist gifted with great erudition. In the second"Jeanne Alexandre" by chance he meets a young girl named Jeanne the granddaughter of a woman he once loved.