French Literature

Vingt mille lieues sous les mers

Jules Verne

Ce roman de Jules Verne s’inscrit dans le genre de la science‑fiction maritime, où l’aventure naît d’un…

The Symbolist Movement in Literature

Arthur Symons

Arthur Symons’s work is a scholarly essay that traces the emergence of Symbolism as a literary movement in…

The Song of Roland

The Song of Roland is an Old‑French epic poem, rendered here in an English translation that preserves the…

The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England, Volume 2 (of 6) Mémoires d'outre-tombe, volume 2

Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de

The work is the second volume of François‑René Chateaubriand’s sprawling autobiographical series, Mémoires…

Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe, Tome 2

Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de

Ce deuxième tome des Mémoires d’Outre‑Tombe poursuit le récit autobiographique de Chateaubriand, rédigé à…

The Unknown Masterpiece 1845

Honoré de Balzac

The Unknown Masterpiece 1845 is a biographical fiction that places a fledgling artist in the bustling…

Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Vol 2.

Pierre de Bourdeille Brantôme

This volume is an erotic chronicle that mixes historical gossip with bawdy humor, beginning with a comparison…

Original Short Stories — Volume 09

Guy de Maupassant

The volume opens with a vivid portrait of Toine Burnt‑Brandy, the rotund innkeeper of a tiny Normandy tavern…

The Guermantes Way

Marcel Proust

The Guermantes Way is an autobiographical work of fiction that continues Marcel Proust’s exploration of…

Le Horla

Guy de Maupassant

Le Horla, texte court de Guy de Maupassant, se présente comme un journal intime où l’auteur décrit, jour…

Pierre and Jean

Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant’s Pierre and Jean opens as a domestic tableau set in Le Havre, where a retired…

Memoirs (Vieux Souvenirs) of the Prince de Joinville

Joinville, François-Ferdinand-Philippe-Louis-Marie d'Orléans, prince de

The work is a first‑person memoir by François‑Ferdinand‑Philippe‑Louis‑Marie d’Orléans, Prince de Joinville,…

La Comédie humaine - Volume 02

Honoré de Balzac

Ce volume fait partie de la vaste fresque de La Comédie humaine, où Balzac dépeint la société française du…

L'homme Qui Rit

Victor Hugo

Ce roman s’inscrit dans la tradition de la fiction historique, mais il se déploie d’une façon singulière, en…

The Law

Frédéric Bastiat

Frédéric Bastiat’s The Law is a polemical essay that frames the protection of life, liberty and property as…

Penguin Island

Anatole France

Anatole France’s Penguin Island begins as a sprawling, allegorical chronicle of Saint Maël, a monk whose life…

The Physiology of Marriage, Complete

Honoré de Balzac

The work is a satirical treatise on marriage that begins with a lofty quotation attributed to Napoleon, who,…

Le comte de Monte-Cristo, Tome IV

Dumas, Alexandre; Maquet, Auguste

Le tome IV poursuit l’épopée du comte de Monte‑Christo dans le même registre d’aventures historiques que les…

Émile Verhaeren

Stefan Zweig

The work is a scholarly tribute to the Belgian poet Émile Verhaeren, assembled by the Austrian writer Stefan…

The Ink-Stain (Tache d'encre) — Complete

René Bazin

René‑Nicholas‑Marie Bazin’s The Ink‑Stain (Une Tache d’encre) is a first‑person narrative that opens with a…

Books and Characters, French & English

Lytton Strachey

The work is a comparative essay that pits French and English literary traditions against one another, using…

Jeanne d'Arc, Maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France Being the Story of Her Life, Her Achievements, and Her Death, as Attested on Oath and Set Forth in the Original Documents

The work presents itself as a meticulously compiled chronicle of Jeanne d’Arc’s life, drawn from the official…

Gothic Architecture

Édouard Corroyer

The book is a scholarly handbook on the development of Gothic architecture, presented in a translation…

Bouvard and Pécuchet: A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life, part 1

Gustave Flaubert

The work is a tragi‑comic portrait of middle‑class life in nineteenth‑century France, presented as the first…