Among the most autobiographical of Colette's works, these four novels are dominated by the child-woman Claudine, whose strength, humor, and zest for living make her seem almost a symbol for the life force.Janet Flanner described these books as "amazing writing on the almost girlish search for the absolute of happiness in physical love . . . recorded by a literary brain always wide awake on the pillow."

    Five Plays, French original, with English Translation.

    None, however, is more bizarre than “The Red Spider”, here presented in English for the first time in a virtuoso translation by Brian Stableford. The novel, seeking to out-Decadent the most decadent of its predecessors, features Andhré Mordann, an ether-drinking hero seemingly modelled on Lorrain himself, who, in this “black, black, black tale”—a tale of true horror and madness—traverses the boulevards of decline, hobnobbing with drunken prostitutes and homosexual strong-men, licentious merrymakers and waterfront idlers—and, of course, the dancer gloved in imperial crimson.