This series of entwined biographical sketches recounts how, in the Romantic Era, love affairs, often illicit, were transformed into novels, memoirs, and published correspondences. We make the intimate acquaintance of great writers like Mme de Stael, Chateaubriand, George Sand, and Anatole France, who, however, fall gradually under the suspicion of pursuing their amorous entanglements for "good material." The tale ends with a moving account, based on unpublished sources, of the strange, intense friendship of Marcel Proust and Jeanne Pouquet, the girl who became the model for Gilberte in Swann's Way. Disenchanted yet compassionate, this book explores how our affections may be exalted (and at times betrayed) by our desire to refashion them as stories.
- ISBN10 0374192316
- ISBN13 9780374192310
- Publish Date 1 February 1996
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 12 November 2014
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Farrar Straus Giroux
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 314
- Language English