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When Marcel Schwob published The Book of Monelle in French in 1894, it immediately became the unofficial bible of the French Symbolist movement, admired by such contemporaries as Stéphane Mallarmé, Alfred Jarry and André Gide. A carefully woven assemblage of legends, aphorisms, fairy tales and nihilistic philosophy, it remains a deeply enigmatic and haunting work more than a century later, a gathering of literary and personal ruins written in a...

Hardened criminal Jacques Collin has been hiding under the guise of a false identity in order to escape the long arm of the law. In the novel Scenes from a Courtesan's Life , however, Collin's deceptions seem finally to have caught up with him. Will he be able to pull off the labyrinthine scheme cooked up to secure his freedom?

With authors such as Voltaire, Honore De Balzac, Victor Hugo, and so many more, French literature can be as intimidating as it is spectacular. Hoping to spread admiration and knowledge about the French literary canon, H.A.L Fisher, a former president of the board of education and prominent historian, sought out Lytton Strachey to write a survey of French literature. After accepting the commission, Strachey exceeded the original expectations, crafting...

"Plain-spoken, headstrong Ophelia cares little about appearances. Her ability to read the past of objects is unmatched in all of Anima and, what's more, she possesses the ability to travel through mirrors, a skill passed down to her from previous generations. Her idyllic life is disrupted, however, when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, a taciturn and influential member of a distant clan. Ophelia must leave all she knows behind and follow her...

The unfettered exuberance of Gargantua and Pantagruel, the storms of phenomenal life it offers for our inspection, the honor it gives to the deformed, the cloacal, and the profane aspects of existence are at the very heart of Rabelais' genius. But the author of this fantasia on the lives of a father-and-son pair of giants was one of the most magnificent and magnificently learned products of the Renaissance; and he also represents, as well as any of...

In nineteenth century France, a former convict tries to overcome his past and is asked to raise a prostitute's daughter, while being hounded by a policeman who vows to put him back behind bars.

Penrod tells of a boy growing up in Indianapolis at the turn of the twentieth century. His friends and his dog accompany him on his many jaunts, from the stage as the Child Sir Lancelot, to the playground, to school. They make names for themselves as bad boys who always have the most fun.

Nana Coupeau is a beautiful woman, able to attract men of enormous wealth with the crook of her finger. Part-time prostitute, part-time actress, she makes her debut in a mediocre operetta The Blonde Venus at the bustling Paris World's Fair of 1867. She can't sing, act or dance, yet she is stunning. Nana soon rockets through elite Parisian society, and, blinded by desire, men crawl to her feet, yielding to her every demand. Affections are manipulated,...

This exquisite novel tells the story of one of the most compelling heroines in modern literature--Emma Bovary. Unhappily married to a devoted, clumsy provincial doctor, Emma revolts against the ordinariness of her life by pursuing voluptuous dreams of ecstasy and love. But her sensuous and sentimental desires lead her only to suffering corruption and downfall.--Amazon.