Alain-Fournier, The Great Gatsby and a party in Chiswick

A century after the death of the French author, his sole novel Le Grand Meaulnes is still inspiring writers. Yet few can owe him a greater or more curious literary debt than F Scott Fitzgerald

On 22 September 1914, Lieutenant Henri-Alban Fournier died when he and his company encountered a German patrol while reconnoitring in woods near Verdun. With few surviving witnesses and the mens bodies missing, what actually happened is murky. As the authors biographer Robert Gibson noted, Alain-Fournier (his pen name) seemed to have vanished, like his hero, at the end of his story [Le Grand Meaulnes], leaving no trace and many questions unanswered. Only in 1991, 77 years later, were 21 skeletons discovered; their leader (armed only with a pistol, and with no helmet) had been shot in the head in a firefight.

His death at 27, poignantly early in the war, consigned Alain-Fournier to the ranks of the novels one-hit-wonders, together with authors such as Emily Brontë, Harper Lee and JD Salinger. Although he had begun Colombe Blanchet, a Flaubert-like blend of romance and provincial life, when he enlisted, his only completed novel was Le Grand Meaulnes, published the previous year and a runnerup for the Prix Goncourt.

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