Born in Laval, which is near enough to Brittany for him to have boasted of being a Breton, Jarry was a brilliant student at the lycées of Laval and Rennes, and went to Paris in 1891 to study at the lycée Henri IV in order to prepare entry to the prestigious college Ecole Normale Supérieure. Though he did well at Henri IV, where he studied philosophy (with Bergson), Latin, Greek, history, French, mathematics, cosmography, and modern languages, he failed in three successive years to get a place at the Ecole Normale (which, it must be said, only had room for twenty-four new students each year from the whole of France). With characteristic obstinacy Jarry put his name down for a fourth attempt, but he withdrew his candidature at the last moment, for by now – 1894 – he was already a well-known figure in the world of avant-garde literature. He had written poems, stories and criticism for little reviews; he had three times won competitions organized by the Echo de Paris; he was already a contributor to the influential Revue Blanche and, more importantly, to the symbolist review Le Mercure de France, whose director, Alfred Vallette, and his wife, the novelist Rachilde, were to become his lifelong friends and supporters.

It is interesting to discover that Jarry, who throughout his short life (he died when he was thirty-four) was notorious for his consciously provocative and outrageous behavior, had during his early student days at Henri IV earned a reputation with at least some of his contemporaries for being shy, well behaved, conscientious, and studious. He was soon to shed the first three characteristics, but studious he was to remain for the rest of his life. Already while following the grueling Henri IV program he was reading widely on a tremendous variety of other subjects at the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève; he was interested in all branches of science (and at one time actually considered following a scientific career), but at the same time he was attracted to Rosicrucianism and other esoteric arts then popular. He was also fascinated by heraldry. Nor did he disdain sports: he was a passionate and skillful fisherman and oarsman, a good fencer, and an ardent cyclist. In 1896 he acquired a “Clément luxe” bicycle, the latest, fastest, and most elegant model. (It cost the fabulous sum of 525 francs, of which the unfortunate dealer was never paid more than a few derisory installments.)