Loti's career as a naval officer took him to the Middle and Far East, thus providing him with the exotic settings of his novels and reminiscences. Following his naval schooling and training, he was promoted ship's lieutenant in 1881 and during 1885–91 saw service in Chinese waters. His subsequent promotions led to an appointment as ship's captain in 1906.

After the publication of his first novel, Aziyadé (1879), he rapidly developed a parallel literary career, winning the respect of critics and the devotion of a large public. With such successes as Pêcheur d'Islande (1886) and Madame Chrysanthème (1887) to his credit and with the approval of such exacting critics as Ferdinand Brunetière, Anatole France, Paul Bourget, and Jules Lemaître, the way was made smooth for his reception into the Académie Française in 1891.

Each year there was a new book, sometimes a novel—Ramuntcho (1897), Les Désenchantées (1906)—often treating objectively the love affairs with which he tried to satisfy his dreams and melancholy at every landfall, and sometimes a volume in which he himself figured—Le Roman d'un enfant (1890), Prime Jeunesse (1919), Un Jeune Officier pauvre (1923)—which reflected most fully his passionate nature.

An exceptionally gifted observer, he was able to return from his voyages with a rich store of pictorial images and embody them in simple, musical prose. But this literary impressionism served a deeper strain in his nature; death, as much as love, lies at the heart of his work, revealing a profound despair at the passing of sensuous life.

This despair was tempered by his tenderness and compassion for the human condition, and such books as Le Livre de la pitié et de la mort (1890) and Reflets sur la sombre route (1889) are perfect examples of his candid art—an art so simple that Lemaître asserted that it was impossible to discover “how it was done.”