Champfleury published his essay collection Le Réalisme in 1857.
The book gathered and developed his arguments about realism in both literature and visual art. Champfleury, the pen name of Jules Husson, defended art grounded in ordinary life, close observation, and relatively unidealized subjects. His ideas were part of the wider mid-19th-century reaction against Romantic excess.
Champfleury was also associated with the periodical Réalisme, edited in 1856 and 1857, which helps explain why nearby dates can cause confusion. The year 1855 belongs to an earlier essay, “Du réalisme,” later incorporated into the collection. The volume itself was published in Paris by Michel Lévy frères in 1857.
The book should not be confused with a single-author manifesto defining all Realist art. Realism developed through overlapping debates involving writers such as Gustave Flaubert and artists such as Gustave Courbet. Champfleury was an important advocate and theorist, but the movement had no universally accepted founder or one fixed program.