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

Chéri, together with The Last of Chéri, is a classic story of a love affair between a very young man and a charming older woman. The amour between Fred Peloux, the beautiful gigolo known as Chéri, and the courtesan Léa de Lonval tenderly depicts the devotion that stems from desire, and is an honest account of the most human preoccupations of youth and middle age. With compassionate insight Colette paints a full-length double portrait using an impressionistic style all her own.

Praise

"Everything that Colette touched became human . . . She was a complete sensualist; but she gave herself up to her senses with such delicacy of perception, with such exquisiteness of physical pain as well as physical ecstasy, that she ennobled sensualism to grandeur." --The Times

"Chéri is her masterpiece."--Michael Straight, The New Republic

"Dramatic and moving . . . [Chéri] endears itself to the reader partly because of its subject, but more because of the manner of its telling."--The New York Times

About the Author(s)

Colette

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, Gigi, Julie de Carneilhan, and Chance Acquaintances, Vagabond, and The Complete Stories of Colette. She died in 1954.

Guides

Reading Group Guide

71 KB