Gigi, Julie de Carneilhan, and Chance Acquaintances: Three Short Novels

by Colette, Roger Senhouse (Translator), Judith Thurman (Introduction), Patrick Leigh Fermor (Translator)

Overview

Two volumes of Colette's most beloved works, with a new Introduction by Judith Thurman.

Perhaps Colette's best-known work, Gigi is the story of a young girl being raised in a household more concerned with success and money than with the desires of the heart. But Gigi is uninterested in the dishonest society life she observes all around her and remains exasperatingly Gigi. The tale of Gigi's success in spite of her anxious family is Colette at her liveliest and most entertaining. Written during the same period as Gigi, Julie de Carneilhan, based on Colette's last years with her second husband, focuses on a contest of wills between Julie, an elegant woman of forty, and her ex-husband. Chance Acquaintances, a novella, involves an invalid wife, her philandering husband, and a music-hall dancer whose odd meeting at a French spa affects and indelibly marks each one of their lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374527853
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	10/10/2001
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	373,240
Product dimensions:	5.55(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Born in 1873 in France, Colette was the author of many acclaimed novels noted for their intimate style. Other Colette titles from FSG include The Complete Claudine, The Vagabond, Chéri and The Last of Chéri, and The Complete Stories of Colette. She died in 1954.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	vii
	Gigi	1
	Julie de Carneilhan	69
	Chance Acquaintances	217

Editorial Reviews

The paradoxes of great literature are those of human nature, and Colette is nothing if not human . . . Accessible and elusive; greedy and austere; courageous and timid; subversive and complacent; scorchingly honest and sublimely mendacious; an inspired consoler and an existential pessimist—these are the qualities of the artist and the woman. Its is time to rediscover them.” —From the Introduction

“Colette is one of the glories of France.” —Michael Straight, The New Republic

From the Publisher