Dans une Espagne médiévale, héroïque, éclatante, deux jeunes gens se déchirent et s'adorent. Pour laver un affront, Rodrigue tue le père de Chimène. L'honneur et le devoir exigent la vengeance et la h…
Père Goriot is the tragic story of a father whose obsessive love for his two daughters leads to his financial and personal ruin. Interwoven with this theme is that of the impoverished young aristocrat…
The Wild Ass's Skin is Honoré de Balzac's 1831 novel that tells the story of a young man, Raphaël de Valentin, who discovers a piece of shagreen, in this case a rough untanned piece of a wild ass's sk…
One of the finest, most delicate love stories ever written, The Devil in the Flesh is set in Paris during the last year of the First World War. The narrator, a boy of sixteen, tells of his love affair…
Jeanne, ayant fini ses malles, s'approcha de la fenêtre, mais la pluie ne cessait pas. L'averse, toute la nuit, avait sonné contre les carreaux et les toits. Le ciel bas et chargé d'eau semblait crevé,…
The complex moral ambiguities of seduction and revenge make Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782) one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. The subject of major film and st…
Based on Flaubert’s own youthful passion for an older woman, Sentimental Education was described by its author as “the moral history of the men of my generation.” It follows the amorous adventures of …
Louis-Ferdinand Celine's revulsion and anger at what he considered the idiocy and hypocrisy of society explodes from nearly every page of this novel. Filled with slang and obscenities and written in r…
Pour juger de la qualité du fiancé qu'on voudrait lui imposer, Silvia prend la place de Lisette, sa servante. Mais Dorante, le fiancé, a eu la même idée de son côté... Le dispositif ainsi truqué, la p…
"'The sweetness of her glance - or rather, my evil star already in its ascendant and drawing me to my ruin - did not allow me to hesitate for a moment...'" "So begins the story of Manon Lescaut, a tal…
The Ladies Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames) recounts the rise of the modern department store in late nineteenth-century Paris. The store is a symbol of capitalism, of the modern city, and of the bourge…
