‘Fine teeth, my girl. With teeth like that I’d have gobbled up Paris and the rest of the world.'Gigi, a teenage girl in fin-de-siècle Paris, is being groomed by her family to become a high-class courtesan, just like her aunt and grandmother before her. But despite their best efforts, their timid protégée may have other ideas for her future...Colette's famous novella is a sly and delicate depiction of exploitation and resistance, and is paired here with the...

Claudine in Paris, the second novel in Colette's celebrated Claudine sequence, transports its sharp-eyed heroine from the provincial schoolroom of Montigny to the more ambiguous social and erotic terrain of the capital. Written in a supple, intimate first-person style, the novel blends diary-like immediacy with ironic social observation, tracing Claudine's convalescence, family entanglements, and initiation into Parisian sophistication. Within the context of fin-de-siècle French literature...

'My little puma! My darling cat! My mountain lion! How will you go on living if we leave each other?'Colette (1873-1954) is one of the most widely read and critically acclaimed French writers of the twentieth century. The Catfirst serialised then published in volume form in 1933) is one of her short novels. This story of a middle-class couple in 1920s Paris follows the familiar romantic structure of the 'eternal triangle', with the unexpected twist that th...

Colette's The Vagabond is a finely observed novel of artistic independence, desire, and self-possession, centered on Renée Néré, a divorced music-hall performer who must choose between romantic security and the precarious freedom of the stage. Written in a supple, sensuous prose that mingles irony with lyrical precision, the book belongs to the early twentieth-century French tradition of psychological realism while also anticipating modern feminist explorations of the female self, labor, a...

Largely autobiographical, La Vagabonde recalls the author’s own years as a dance-hall performer in turn-of-the-century Paris. Colette takes the listener backstage and into the demimonde of Renée Néré, an aging dancer, mime, and failed writer. In a sultry, passionate, and intelligent voice, Renée narrates the story of her romance with an admirer named Maxime. Her struggle is that of a woman who must choose between freedom and love.

Colette's Gigi is a finely poised novella of Belle Époque Paris, where manners, money, and erotic commerce are rendered with crystalline irony. Its young heroine is being educated by her grandmother and great-aunt for the demi-monde, yet her candor unsettles the elegant machinery of arranged pleasure. Written in Colette's supple, exact prose, the book belongs to the French tradition of social comedy while quietly revising it through a woman's scrutiny of desire, performance, and power. Col...

Hayden Mundy Moore is an expert on everything chocolate, helping clients develop new products and revamp recipes until they're irresistible. But sometimes, a dash of murder finds its way into the mix...Hayden Mundy Moore has bushwhacked through African jungles and haggled in exotic markets to find the finest cacao beans and the most flavorful blends. It's thrilling work but rarely dangerous--until a colleague turns up dead at the exclusive chocolate-themed Lemaître resort spa in Sa...

Colette's irresistible depiction of a childhood in rural France, in a lush new translation‘I will never be able to help anyone imagine the splendour, bound up in my memories’Claudine lives in a large house with a rose-filled garden and a vegetable patch smelling of tomato leaves and apricots. Beyond it is the village, where travelling performers stop for the night and wedding feasts take place under a bright summer moon. Inside her house are Mama, ...

Following the excitement of a shared life in Paris, Claudine's marriage to the distinguished Renaud has settled into a stale pattern of bickering conversations and mutual inattention. Just as Claudine begins to fear herself confined to a stifled existence, a chance meeting with a friend's wife, the beautiful Rezi, draws her into an impassioned and heartbreaking affair.In Claudine Married Claudine pits her uniquely sensuous spirit against the challenges of married life and ...

Ch�ri, first published in 1920, is considered Colette's finest novel. Exquisitely handsome, spoilt and sardonic, Ch�ri is the only son of a wealthy courtesan, a contemporary of L�a, the magnificent and talented woman who for six years has devoted herself to his amorous education.When a rich marriage is arranged for Ch�ri, L�a reluctantly decides their relationship must end. Ch�ri, despite his apparent detachment, is haunted by memories of L�a; alienated from his wife, his ...

Edited and with an introduction by Robert PhelpsThe hundred short stories collected here include such masterpieces as 'Bella-Vista', 'The Tender Shoot' and 'Le K-pi', Colette's subtle and ruthless rendering of a woman's belated sexual awakening. 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.

Barks and Purrs is a collection of seven episodes in the lives of Toby-Dog, a French Bulldog, and Kiki-the-Demure, a Maltese cat, living in a comfortable household. The episodes cover a hot afternoon, a train ride, and what happened when dinner was late or their mistress was ill. We hear about the first fire in autumn, a heavy storm, and about a visitor in the household.Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette-Willy was throughout her life a controversial French novelist. She published around 50 ...