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COLETTE by Margaret Crosland

COLETTE

By

Pub Date: Aug. 18th, 1954
Publisher: British Book Centre

A portrait of the famous French writer is based largely on her revealing novels and journals and pays tribute to an intimate, idiosyncratic artist, and her talent, subtle, sensuous and -- perhaps ultimately- slight as it may be. A calm, country childhood did not sophisticate her for the life she was to lead in Paris with Willy, who married her. Under his patronizing, paternal, and to a large extent parasitic, guidance, she was to write the first Claudine which brought her fame- and Willy- money, until she left him thirteen years later. Her writing continued- and her many books about the passing, sometimes perverse, phases of love earned her critical as well as popular recognition; for a few years she attempted to earn a living on the stage, as a mime; at forty, she tried marriage again- and again was its victim; and in her fifties found permanence with Maurice Goudeket, always devoted.... A special audience, already established, will find much of the attenuated, wistful, piquante charm that is hers.