Raymond Radiguet wrote the highly scandalous Devil in the Flesh between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, following his own love affair with a married woman. At the time, in post WWI France, the book created a stir comparable to that of Lady Chatterley's Lover Francois, the adolescent narrator, meets Marthe in Paris at the start of the First World War when her husband is away at the Front. They fall in love with each other. Their passion leads to a tragic climax four years later when Marth...

A man vilified by society and condemned to death for his crime wakes every morning knowing that this day might be his last. Graphically detailed, this first-person chronicle describes both the prisoner's wretched environment and his thoughts, reminiscences, and despair at his impending doom. This edition also includes the companion pieces "A Comedy about a Tragedy" and "Claude Gueux," a real-life account of an executed criminal in France.

Hailed by Jean Cocteau as a "masterpiece," and by the Guardian as "Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero, avant la lettre," this taut tale written by a teenager in the form of a frank "confession" is a gem of early twentieth century romanticism. Long unavailable in the U.S., it is here presented in a sparkling new translation.Set in Paris during the First World War, it tells the story of Francois, the 16-year-old narrator, who falls in love with Marthe, an older, mar...

When the young salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning transformed into a monstrous insect, his shock and incomprehension are coupled with the panic of being late for work and having to reveal his appearance to family and colleagues. Although over the following weeks he gradually becomes used to this new existence confined within the bounds of the apartment, and his parents and sister adapt to living with a grotesque bug, Gregor notices that their attitudes towards him are changing and ...

Beautiful Emma Rouault yearns for the life of wealth, passion and romance she has encountered in popular sentimental fiction, and when her doctor, the well-meaning but awkward and unremarkable Charles Bovary, begins to pay her attention, she imagines that she may be granted her wish. However, after their marriage, Emma soon becomes frustrated with the boredom of provincial life and finds herself seeking escape and contemplating adultery. As Emma's efforts to make a reality of her fantasies...

From the groundbreaking author of The Second Sex "a book that will leave no one indifferent, and no one affected in quite the same way" ( New York Times ).A superb memoir by one of the great literary figures of the twentieth century, Simone de Beauvoir's Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter offers an intimate picture of growing up in a bourgeois French family, rebelling as an ...

Based on Flaubert’s own youthful passion for an older woman, “Sentimental Education” was described by its author as “the moral history of the men of my generation.” It follows the amorous adventures of Frederic Moreau, a law student who, returning home to Normandy from Paris, notices Mme Arnoux, a slender, dark woman several years older than himself. It is the beginning of an infatuation that will last a lifetime. He befriends her husband, an influential businessman, and as their paths cro...

A sensitive writer flees the clatter of London for a sleepy French city. After settling in at quiet hotel, he spies a ghostly, solitary young woman weeping in a walled garden, her features hidden from view. Compelled to see the woman's face, he ventures forward.... Originally published on Christmas in 1931, "One Who Saw" is regarded as A.M. Burrage's masterpiece.

A woman is murdered at a Margate hotel. The police are certain that the culprit is William Bankes, her adulterous lover; but barrister and author Richard Lanward is convinced that the wrong man is to be tried for the crime. When Lanward sets out to prove Bankes's innocence, however, he can have no conception of the tragic consequences for himself...First published in 1901, this is a dramatic story of murder, mystery and retribution.

This is an electronic edition of the complete book complemented by author biography. This book features a table of contents linked to every chapter. The book was designed for optimal navigation on the iPad, Nook, PDA, Smartphone, and other electronic readers. It is formatted to display on all electronic devices including eReaders, Smartphones and other Mobile Devices with a small display.

Now available for the first time in the United States, a celebrated translation of the first volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.Swann’s Way, the first of the seven volumes that constitute Marcel Proust’s lifework, In Search of Lost Time, introduces the larger themes of the whole work while standing on its own as a brilliant evocation of childhood, hopeless love, and the French Belle Époque.We first encounter Proust’s narrat...

**A NYRB CLASSICS ORIGINALDiscover 9 classic short stories by the giant of French literature—whose work inspired Dostoyevsky, Henry James, and Marcel Proust—with this collection showcasing Balzac’s impressive range.**Characters from every corner of society and all walks of life—lords and ladies, businessmen and military men, poor clerks, unforgiving moneylenders, aspiring politicians, artists, actresses, swindlers, misers, parasites, sexual adventurers, crackpots, and more—...