Fenilleton

Fenilleton (Fr., lit. 'a small leaf'), the name applied to that portion of a political newspaper set apart for intelligence of a non-political character, for criticisms on art or literature, or for fiction, and usually separated from the main sheet by a line. The feuilleton was first adopted in 1800 by the Abbé Geoffroy for dramatic criticisms in the Journal des Débats, but by degrees the element of belles-lettres became dominant, and the result was a species of light journalistic literature, in which Jules Janin became the acknowledged king. In the years immediately preceding the revolution of February 1848 entire romances were spun out in the feuilleton, as the novels of Eugene Sue in the Constitutionnel. Among the later French feuilletonistes may be named Fr. Sarcey, P. de Saint-Victor, Alb. Wolff, Jul. Claretie, and A. Scholl. The French system has been imitated in Germany, though with less success than in France, but has hitherto found less favour in England. The more eminent of recent German feuilletonistes are K. Frenzel, P. Lindau, L. Pietsch, F. Gross, O. Bauck, and the humorists, Eckstein, Stettenheim, Trojan, and Dolm.