Marseille, porte du Sud by Albert Londres

"Marseille, porte du Sud" by Albert Londres is a work of literary reportage written in the early 20th century. It offers a panoramic, witty, and incisive portrait of Marseille as France’s great gateway to the world, centering on its port, ships, cargoes, migrants, and workers. The focus is the city’s ceaseless circulation of people and goods between Europe and distant “Orients,” rendered through on-the-ground scenes, sharp social observation, and lyrical evocations of travel. The opening of the book paints the port as a living voice inviting readers to embark toward every horizon, then unfurls Marseille as a monumental “door” through which nations, languages, and trades flow. The author tours the quays and their cargoes (from coffee and cotton to elephants and coal), celebrates the fever of export/import, and stages a vivid departure for China with chaotic traffic and boarding rituals. He sketches the Canebière as a migrators’ forum, recounts a thwarted reunion with the indefatigable Railly, and turns to the Joliette where dockers and broken charbonniers grind out a harsh day for a few francs. The Hotel des Emigrants becomes a crossroads of hopes—Levantines bound for Brazil with a single basket, Serbs, Georgians, Jews, and cyclical Romanian harvesters—set against both swindles and a self-made benefactor’s return; then comes the comic-sad miracle worker who “detattoos” the penitent, and finally the café tables of deep-sea officers, whose lives are measured in voyages rather than days. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Download for free

For your e-reader or reading app — Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, Calibre etc.

Other formats & older devices
447 kB
424 kB

There may be more files related to this item.

About this eBook

Author Londres, Albert, 1884-1932
LoC No. 28003313
Title Marseille, porte du Sud
Original Publication Paris: Les éditions de France, 1927.
Credits Claudine Corbasson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
Reading Level Reading ease score: 85.8 (6th grade). Easy to read.
Language French
LoC Class DC: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: France, Andorra, Monaco
Subject Marseille (France) -- Description and travel
Category Text
eBook-No. 76179
Release Date
Copyright Public domain in the USA.
Downloads 295 downloads in the last 30 days.

Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free!