Jean Richepin (French pronunciation: ​[ʒɑ̃ ʁiʃpɛ̃]; 4 February 1849 – 12 December 1926), French poet, novelist and dramatist, the son of an army doctor, was born at Médéa, French Algeria. At school and at the École Normale Supérieure he gave evidence of brilliant, if somewhat undisciplined, powers, for which he found physical vent in different directions—first as a franc-tireur in the Franco-German War, and afterwards as actor, sailor and stevedore—and an intellectual outlet in the writing of poems, plays and novels which vividly reflected his erratic but unmistakable talent. A play, L'Étoile, written by him in collaboration with André Gill (1840–1885), was produced in 1873; but Richepin was virtually unknown until the publication, in 1876, of a volume of verse entitled La Chanson des gueu