His versions of stories such as The Hare and the Tortoise and The Wolf and the Lamb are witty and sophisticated, satirizing human nature in miniature dramas in which the outcome is always unpredictable. The behavior of both animals and humans is usually centered on deception and cooperation (or the lack of it), as they cheat and fight each other, arguing about life and death, property and food, in an astonishing variety of narrative styles. The fables have long been popular with all ages, though their ironic take on contemporary society in French aristocratic circles is best appreciated by adults. This new translation by Christopher Betts matches the original in inventiveness and subtlety. It includes half of the fables first published in twelve books between 1668 and 1693, across the full range of subjects and themes. The fables are illustrated with a selection of Gustave Dore's majestic engravings, and an introduction offers insights into La Fontaine's life and literary artistry.

    It is published here with the short story The Retreat of Monsieur Bougran. M. Folantin is a government employee who is overwhelmed by the quotidian misery of life. The story follows his quixotic quest for enjoyment as he goes to a restaurant, to the cinema, and to a prostitute—but ultimately finds that nothing can relieve him of his disgust and boredom with the business of living. Joris–Karl Huysmans, art critic and author of Against Nature, is a leading figure in France’s Decadent Movement.

    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 style that evokes both the Brothers Grimm and Friedrich Nietzsche. The Book of Monelle was the result of Schwob's intense emotional suffering over the loss of his love, a "girl of the streets" named Louise, whom he had befriended in 1891 and who succumbed to tuberculosis two years later. Transforming her into the innocent prophet of destruction, Monelle, Schwob tells the stories of her various sisters: girls succumbing to disillusionment, caught between the misleading world of childlike fantasy and the bitter world of reality. This new translation reintroduces a true fin-de-siècle masterpiece into English.A secret influence on generations of writers, from Guillaume Apollinaire and Jorge Luis Borges to Roberto Bolaño, Marcel Schwob (1867-1905) was as versed in the street slang of medieval thieves as he was in the poetry of Walt Whitman (whom he translated into French). Paul Valéry and Alfred Jarry both dedicated their first books to him, and he was the uncle of Surrealist photographer Claude Cahun.

    The philosophy of La Rochefoucauld, which influenced French intellectuals as diverse as Voltaire and the Jansenists, is captured here in more than 600 penetrating and pithy aphorisms.

    "L'astragale" is the French word for the ankle bone Albertine Sarrazin's heroine Anne breaks as she leaps from her jail cell to freedom. As she drags herself down the road, away from the prison walls, she is rescued by Julien, himself a small-time criminal, who keeps her hidden. They fall in love. Fear of capture, memories of her prison cell, claustrophobia in her hideaways: every detail is fiercely felt.Astragal burst onto the French literary scene in 1965; its fiery and vivacious style was entirely new, and Sarrazin became a celebrity overnight. But as fate would have it, Sarrazin herself kept running into trouble with the law, even as she became a star.She died from a botched surgery at the height of her fame. Sarrazin's life and work (her novels are semi-autobiographical) have been the subject of intense fascination in France; a new adaptation of Astragal is currently being filmed. Patti Smith, who brought Astragal to the attention of New Directions, contributes an enthusiastic introduction to one of her favorite writers.

    It concludes with excerpts from his creative writings such as Monsieur Teste and the drama Mon Faust.The list of translators for this volume is distinguished. Among them are Lionel Abel, Léonie Adams, Malcolm Cowly, James Kirkup, C. Day Lewis, Jackson Mathews, Louise Varese, and Vernon Watkins.

    The creator of the Arthurian romance as a genre, Chrétien is revealed in this work as a witty, versatile writer who mastered both the soaring flight of emotion and the devastating aside and was as skillful a debater of the finer points of love as he was a describer of battles.

    By the time he published The Difficulty of Being in 1947, Jean Cocteau had produced some of the most respected films and literature of the twentieth century, and had worked with the foremost artists of his time, including Proust, Gide, Picasso, and Stravinsky. This memoir tells the inside account of those achievements and of his glittering social circle. Cocteau writes about his childhood, about his development as an artist, and the peculiarity of the artist’s life, about his dreams, friendships, pain, and laughter. He probes his motivations and explains his philosophies, giving intimate details in soaring prose. And sprinkled throughout are anecdotes about the elite and historic people he associated with. Beyond illuminating a truly remarkable life, The Difficulty of Being is an inspiring homage to the belief that art matters.

    In my case, blinking my left eyelid is my only means of communication.’In December 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French ‘Elle’ and the father of two young children, suffered a massive stroke and found himself paralysed and speechless, but entirely conscious, trapped by what doctors call ‘locked-in syndrome’. Using his only functioning muscle – his left eyelid – he began dictating this remarkable story, painstakingly spelling it out letter by letter.His book offers a haunting, harrowing look inside the cruel prison of locked-in syndrome, but it is also a triumph of the human spirit.

    While Roxane is in love with the beautiful but inarticulate Christian.Cyrano's generous offer to act as go-between sets in motion a poignant and often hilarious love-triangle, in which each character is torn between the lure of physical attraction and the seductive power of words.Martin Crimp's adaptation of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac premiered at the Playhouse Theatre, London, in November 2019.

    As such, the book does not require any commentary.From the preface by Marguerite Yourcenar.

    

    Critics have compared his work to such diverse artists as Kafka, Goya, Swift, Klee, and Beckett. Allen Ginsberg called Michaux “genius,” and Jorge Luis Borges wrote that Michaux’s work “is without equal in the literature of our time.” This anthology contains substantial selections from almost all of Michaux’s major works, most never before published in English, and allows readers to explore the haunting verbal and pictorial landscape of a twentieth-century visionary.

    Alternately voyeur and seer, he obsessively studies the private moments and secret activities of his neighbors: childbirth, first love, marriage, betrayal, illness and death all present themselves to him through this spy hole. Decades ahead of its time, "Hell" shocked and scandalized the reviewing public when first released in English in 1966. Even so, the New Republic praised "the beauty of the book's nervous yet fluid rhythms... The book sweeps away life's illusions."

    And only nine hundred million of them will be white. What will happen when the teeming billions of the so-called Third World - driven by unbearable hunger and despair, the inevitable consequences of insensate over-population - descend locust-like on the lush lands of the complacent white nations?Jean Raspail has the rare imagination and courage necessary to face this terrifying question head-on. Readers of whatever color and political persuasion will find in The Camp of the Saints (already a bestseller in France & America) a hypnotically readable novel of compelling power that will disturb, provoke and horrify them by turns. And so powerful is its impact that once you have read it you will need brain surgery to forget it.