EARTHLY PARADISE: An Autobiography of Colette

by Robert- Ed. Phelps ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 9, 1966

Colette in her lifetime was celebrated as a novelist, as the creator of Cheri, Claudine and Gigi. Yet, during the half century of her very public life, she also published a number of autobiographical works comprised of her essays, memoirs, diaries, and ""portraits,"" and it now seems, only a decade after her death, that Gig et Cie. have been relegated to their proper places as minor works of a major talent, and that it is Colette herself who emerges as her own most important creation. The editor of this volume has gathered together an abundance of texts from the autobiographical works of Colette, arranging them in roughly chronological order, designed to present the subject as ""an emblematic image that merges the private life and the public art into a greater whole which then comes to incarnate some perennial tendency, or tactic, in human experience."" It would be difficult to fault either Mr. Phelps' concept or Colette's human significance, or his editorial dexterity in achieving his purpose. What he has achieved is, in effect, the autobiographical treatment that Colette herself might have wished, one that is a felicitous combination of empirical fact and adroit speculation on the mutual effects of Colette on her characters and of the characters on Colette. The book is an indispensable work for students of literature.

Pub Date: May 9, 1966

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1966

Categories: NONFICTION