Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little PriceA classic 19th-century French farce by Eugène Labiche.Fadinard is on the way to his wedding when his horse eats a straw hat hanging on a bush. The owner of the hat is a former girlfriend who insists that Fadinard buys her a new hat instantly. He sets off to find a replacement hat, followed by his fiancée and all their guests. The play develops into a delirious chase as Fadinard hunts the hat and...

Paris, 1870. Adultery ought to be a serious business… but it's hard to keep your dignity when the cleaning lady has a fireman in your kitchen and she suspects that something is up. Not to mention the fact that your lover is not only stuck halfway up a drainpipe but is also your husband's very best friend. And as for the blackmailing taxi driver - he knows everything!The Threesome is a feast of finely tuned extra-marital mayhem from the master of French farce. This version w...

An eccentric young caretaker brings exuberant life to a smalltown French cemetery in this #1 international bestselling novel: "Enchanting" ( Publishers Weekly).Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne, France. Traversing the grounds by unicycle, tending to her many gardens—and being present for the intimate, often humorous confidences of visitors—Violette's life follows the predictable rhythms of mourning. But then Viol...

From the New York Times and international best-selling author Tatiana de Rosnay comes The Other Story, "[a] brilliant pager-turner"(BookPage), layered and beautifully written, that is a reflection on identity, the process of being a writer and the repercussions of generations-old decisions as they echo into the present and shape the future.Vacationing at a luxurious Tuscan island resort, Nicolas Duhamel is hopeful that the ghosts of his p...

James Baldwin’s groundbreaking novel whose frank exploration of sexuality and self-acceptance was decades ahead of its time—named one of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the past 100 years“Baldwin writes . . . with unusual candor and yet with such dignity and intensity.”—The New York TimesIn 1950s Paris, a young American expatriate finds himself caught between his repressed desires and conventional morality. David h...

Figure out whodunnit in this exciting new 1930s crime series that whisks you away to the most gorgeous escapist destinations!A beautiful French estateA weddingA murderAnd a novice detective intent on solving her first case!Fresh from teaching at her prestigious Swiss boarding school, Miss Atalanta Ashford suddenly finds herself the most eligible young lady in society when she inherit...

Mesdames et Messieurs, presenting La Petite Mort, or, A Little Death ... A silent film, destroyed in a fire in 1913 at the Path? studio, before it was seen even by its director. A lowly seamstress, who makes the costumes she should be wearing, but believes her talent - and the secret she keeps too - will soon get her a dressing room of her own. A beautiful house in Paris, with a curving staircase, a lake, and locked rooms. A famous - and dashing - creator of spectacular cinematic illusions...

From the bestelling author of GIRL IN HYACINTH BLUE, "A vivid exploration of one of the most beloved Renoir paintings in the world, done with a flourish worthy of Renoir himself" (USA Today)With her richly textured novels, Susan Vreeland has offered pioneering portraits of artists' lives. As she did in Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Vreeland focuses on a single painting, Auguste Renoir's instantly recognizable masterpiece, which depicts a...

“This novel about Sarah Bernhardt, the iconic French actress, is both a riveting portrait of the artist as a passionate young woman and a luscious historical novel full of period detail.”—Melanie Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of Mistress of the Ritz and The Aviator’s WifeFrom her beginnings as the daughter of a courtesan to her extraordinary transformation into the most celebrated actress of her era, Sarah Bernhardt is broug...

The story of how it all began: an investigation into a dynastic family pulls a young Maigret away from his desk and into a web of fame, money, and corruption.At age twenty-six, Maigret is a secretary at the Saint-Georges district police station: a lowly, mostly deskbound job. Late one night, a young musician comes in. He had been walking home, he says, when he saw a woman at the window of a mansion, shouting for help. Then a gunshot rang out.The mansion bel...

When Charles Sainte-Beuve, a French journalist, met Victor Hugo, an ambitious young writer, he was swept into a world of grand emotions, a world where words can become swords. But Charles' attraction moves on from Victor, to his wife Ad?le. Soon the two lovers are on the edge of a great scandale and a wounded Victor must exact his price for betrayal. Set during the tumultuous reign of Napoleon III, this mesmerising novel draws a rich portrait of old Paris, where duels were fought and chole...

The award-winning screenplay for the classic film the New York Post hailed as "overwhelming . . . a motion picture landmark."One of the most influential works in the history of cinema, Alain Renais's Hiroshima Mon Amour gathered international acclaim upon its release in 1959 and was awarded the International Critics' Prize at the Cannes Film festival and the New York Film Critics' Award. Ostensibly the story of a love affair between a Japanese arc...