Claudine At School

(Paperback)

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Description

Claudine is a head strong, clever and extremely mischievous schoolgirl. Along with her friends the lanky Anais, the cheerful Marie and the prim Joubert twins Claudine wreaks havoc on her small school. Always clever, witty and charming Claudine is more than a match for her formidable headmistress as they fight for the attention of the pretty assistant Aimee. The horrors of examinations and good-humoured bullying are the backdrops in this immensely funny and delightful novel with which Colette established the captivating character of Claudine. Through the games, the fun and the intricacies of school life Claudine emerges as a true original; lyrical and intelligent she is one of the twentieth century's most beguiling emancipated women

Reviews

A perpetual feast to the reader. Her prose is rich, flawless, intricate, audacious and utterly beautiful -- Raymond Mortimer, Vogue
Everything that Colette touched became human * The Times *
Her sensual prose style made her one of the great writers of 20th century France * New York Times Book Review *
Accessible and elusive; greedy and austere; courageous and timid; subversive and complacent; scorchingly honest and sublimely mendacious; an inspired consoler and an existential pessimistthese are the qualities of the artist and the woman. It is time to rediscover them -- Judith Thurman, biographer of Colette

Author Bio

Colette, the creator of Claudine, Cheri and Gigi, and one of France's outstanding writers, had a long, varied and active life. Born in Burgundy on 1873 she moved to Paris at the age of twenty with her husband the writer and critic Henry Gauthiers-Viller (Willy). Forcing Colette to write Willy published her novels in his name and the Claudine series became an instant success. In 1935 she married for the third time and lived with husband Maurice Goudeket until her death in 1954. Her writing runs to fifteen volumes, novels, portraits, essays, chroniques and a large body of autobiographical prose. She was the first woman President of the Academie Goncourt, and when she died she was given a state funeral and buried in Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.