Jacques Élisée Reclus (French: [ʁəkly]; 15 March 1830 – 4 July 1905) was a French geographer, writer, anarchist, and a vegetarian. He produced his 19-volume masterwork, La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes (Universal Geography), over a period of nearly 20 years (1875–1894). In 1892 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Paris Geographical Society for this work, despite having been banished from France because of his political activism.
Early life and education
Reclus was born at Sainte-Foy-la-Grande (Gironde) on March 15, 1830. The Reclus family were part of the Protestant minority in France. His father, Jacques Reclus, was a Protestant pastor in Montcaret and taught at Sainte-Foy's Protestant college; Reclus' godfather was the Protestant pastor Jacques Drillholle. Reclus' mother, Marguerite Zéline Trigant, was a teacher and founded a school at Orthez. Reclus spent his early years at the home of his maternal grandparents in Laroche, until he rejoined his family in 1838 at Castétarbe.
Reclus was the second son in a family of fourteen children. His brothers were Onésime, Élie, Paul, and Armand - who went on to be men of letters, politicians or members of the learned professions.
Reclus began his education in Rhenish Prussia, and continued higher studies at the Protestant college of Montauban, after he had studied for a baccalaureate at Sainte-Foy. While studying at Sainte-Foy, Reclus and his brother lived with their aunt. Reclus felt dissatisfied with his studies at Montauban, moving four kilometers away to study independently in a house with his brothers and their friend Édouard Grimard. In 1849, without authorisation to take leave from the school, Élisée, Élie and Edouard journeyed on foot from Montauban to the Mediterranean Sea; shortly after this episode, the Reclus brothers were expelled from the school, in part because of their political views.
