{"title":"Books by Colette","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781681376707","title":"Chéri and The End of Chéri","description":"\u003cb\u003eColette's celebrated novels about an older courtesan and her young lover, now in a new translation and published in one volume.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eColette’s \u003ci\u003eChéri\u003c\/i\u003e (1920) and its sequel, \u003ci\u003eThe End of Chéri\u003c\/i\u003e (1926), are widely considered her masterpieces. In sensuous, elegant prose, the two novels explore the evolving inner lives and the intimate relationship of an unlikely couple: Léa de Lonval, a middle-aged former courtesan, and Fred Peloux, twenty-five years her junior, known as Chéri. The two have been involved for years, and it is time for Chéri to get on with life, to make something of himself, but he, the personification of male beauty and vanity, doesn’t know how to go about it. It is time, too, for Léa to let go ofChéri and the sensual life that has been hers, and yet this is more easily resolved than done. Chéri marries, but once married he is restless and is inevitably drawn back to his mistress, as she is to him. And yet to reprise their relationship is only to realize even more the inevitability of its end. That end will come when Chéri, back from World War I, encounters a world that the war has changed through and through. Lost in his memories of time past, he is irremediably lost to the busy present. Paul Eprile’s new translation of these two celebrated novels brings out a vivid sensuality and acute intelligence that past translations have failed to capture.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43128591777970,"sku":"9781681376707","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781681376707_b854da84-3e05-4291-bbee-32f4486fd251.jpg?v=1786024563"},{"product_id":"9781784878436","title":"Cheri","description":"\u003cb\u003eA vivid, believable love story between an older woman and a younger man.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLéa de Lonval is a magnificent and aging courtesan facing the end of her career. She has devoted the last six years to the amorous education of the exquisitely handsome and spoilt Chéri – a playboy half her age. When an advantageous marriage is arranged for Chéri, Léa reluctantly decides their relationship must end. 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With the help of Claudine, Annie takes steps to empower her own life, a life away from her husband.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough Colette's intoxicating series of novels emerges a portrait of Claudine an intelligent, modern woman whose life is always honest, passionate and inspiring.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56222884528501,"sku":"9780099422488","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780099422488_7697fdb3-524c-41ed-94c3-be59857b680c.jpg?v=1786011569"},{"product_id":"9780099422761","title":"Cheri","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA vivid, believable love story between an older woman and a younger man.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLéa de Lonval is a magnificent and aging courtesan facing the end of her career. 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Shot through with the colours and flavours of the Parisian world and fertile French countryside, these short stories reverberate with the fine-spun desire, wit and psychological acuity that made Colette unique.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56223079727477,"sku":"9780099449089","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780099449089_935aa244-2bae-4949-9b8e-3b4677344e22.jpg?v=1786011024"},{"product_id":"9780198881582","title":"The Vagabond","description":"'Nothing is real except the dance, the light, the freedom, the music.'Colette's semi-autobiographical novel The Vagabond (1910) follows thirty-three-year-old Renée Néré as she embarks on a stage career after a divorce from philandering ex-husband, painter Adolphe Taillandy. Unlike the earlier Claudine series, which began as a collaboration between Colette and her first husband, Colette worked alone on The Vagabond to create a leading lady navigating the Parisian working world on her own terms. The music hall performers are Renée's familiars and confidants, her fellow vagabonds; for the first time, the reader is offered a look behind the scenes from a woman's perspective, a view enabled by Colette's own simultaneous experience as writer and dancer. Unambiguously feminist and unabashedly sensual, The Vagabond established Colette as a serious novelist, showcasing her talent as an observer of the natural world and a painter of the beauty of the human form.Frances Egan's new translation provides a fresh take on Colette's voice, offering a highly readable text which pulls readers into Renée's world, while preserving as much of the original context as possible to bring Paris, the music hall, and its crew of vagabonds, to life. Attention is paid to Colette's depiction of class, race, and gender. Helen Southworth's in-depth introduction places the book in the context of Colette's life, offers background on Belle Epoque theatre and feminisms, and traces its reception and its importance to readers from Colette's time to our own. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around theglobe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of othervaluable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies forfurther study, and much more.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56227236413813,"sku":"9780198881582","price":6.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780198881582_1ca18eff-18d6-4519-bceb-d1a834583404.jpg?v=1786012750"},{"product_id":"9780486475851","title":"The Vagabond","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom the author of \u003ci\u003eGigi\u003c\/i\u003e comes this tale of 33-year-old Renée Néré, recently divorced and seeking a new life as a vaudeville performer. Maxime, a wealthy playboy, tempts her from the path of independence with the comforts of love and marriage. 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This edition is translated from French by Janet Flanner, who was an extraordinary writer and journalist. She was the Paris correspondent for The New Yorker for fifty years.   From gossip to exams, to crushes and betrayals, Claudine treats us like her closest friend, telling us her deepest secrets. In a day-to-day account of her life at school, we learn that she falls head over heels in love with Miss Aimee - one of her teachers - which leads to a brief affair; she provocatively plays with the affections of a young pupil; and she boldly defies the strict headmistress. Clever, crafty and fiercely independent, Claudine thrives at the centre of the action.   Immensely witty, utterly charming and closely reminiscent of Colette’s own life, Claudine at School is a love letter to rural France and the joie de vivre of youth.   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Beyond her house is the village, where traveling performers stop for the night and wedding feasts take place under a bright summer moon. Inside her house are Mama, who loves animals, Papa, who lost his leg in the war, and a library full of forbidden and irresistible books . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBased on Colette’s own early life, \u003ci\u003eClaudine’s House \u003c\/i\u003eis a rich and enchanting depiction of childhood, animals, flowers, trees, books, families, and love in late-nineteenth-century France.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367860253045,"sku":"9780241574690","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241574690_595bc69a-413d-41e4-9c4d-cbf0f9362a5a.jpg?v=1786033120"},{"product_id":"9781529983609","title":"The Cat","description":"\u003cb\u003eColette’s elegant, unsettling study of love turned hostile - and all because of a cat. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eA young marriage begins to sour, poisoned by rivalry and resentment. At its centre is a cat – adored by the husband, despised by the wife – whose presence exposes the quiet cruelty and emotional imbalance of the household.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56369015292277,"sku":"9781529983609","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781529983609_49c61db9-5b00-4f77-a7b9-51e700922fdd.jpg?v=1786023333"},{"product_id":"9781324075233","title":"The Pure and the Impure","description":"Lyrical, allusive, sometimes obscure, yet precise, The Pure and the Impure has elicited equal parts consternation and praise since its publication nearly 100 years ago. Colette herself was unequivocal: “I believe it to be my best book.” Through strikingly vivid and evocative portraits, many of them of her friends and lovers, Colette explores varieties of sexual expression, gender identity, love and sensual pleasure. Decades ahead of its time in contemplating queerness and women’s sexuality, The Pure and the Impure provides a fascinating window into the sexual demimondes of the Parisian Belle Époque: We meet cross-dressing lesbians, a sapphic poet, Don Juans male and female, the circle of gay men whose companionship saw Colette through the difficult years of her first marriage and Colette’s onetime lover Missy—La Chevalière—who might today be a transgender man. At the same time, the book offers a unique portrait of a complex and often contradictory character: Colette herself. The “brilliantly ingenious” (Lydia Davis) translator Rachel Careau offers readers a lean, elegant and highly readable rendition that reproduces Colette’s extraordinary musicality, making her “perfect, lapidary and truth-bearing sentences” (Terry Castle) sing for English readers. Rachel Careau’s translation of Colette’s Chéri and The End of Chéri was praised as:“This heartbreaking, astute pair of novels…are among the best of [Colette’s] vast, impressive canon.” – The New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice\"Both novels are exquisite in structure, sparse and lacy, every detail in a web of other details, merciless, precise.\" – Jenny Turner, London Review of Books","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56420558766453,"sku":"9781324075233","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781324075233.jpg?v=1791212794"},{"product_id":"chance-acquaintances-and-julie-de-carneilhan","title":"Chance Acquaintances and Julie De Carneilhan","description":"Set in pre-war Paris, Julie de Carneilhan tells of the complex relationship between proud but impoverished Julie and her former husband, the Comte d'Espivant, who has remarried a wealth widow. Julie de Carneilhan was the last full-length novel Colette was to write as was 'as close a reckoning with the elements of her second marriage as she ever allowed herself.'In Chance Acquaintances Colette visits a health resort accompanied only by her cat. While there, she befriends the handsome Gerard Haume and his invalid wife Antoinette, and is unwittingly caught up in the mysterious and disturbing events which befall them.Varying widely in mood and treatment, these two short novels demonstrate the versatility and sensitivity of Colette's writing","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57466595901813,"sku":"9780099422785","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780099422785.jpg?v=1785654653"},{"product_id":"my-mothers-house","title":"My Mother's House","description":null,"brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57502175166837,"sku":"9780887487477","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780887487477.jpg?v=1792422818"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-colette.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}