Colette sidonie gabrielle biography books

The French author Sidonie Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954) was concerned pertain to feminine independence in experiencing the joys and sorrows of love. She succeeded in translating a delicate sensibility affect a vivid, sensual, and highly imagistic prose.

On Jan. 28, 1873, Sidonie Gabrielle Colette was born in a depleted Burgundian town, Saint-Sauveuren-Puisaye. In 1893 she married Henri Gauthier-Villars, a Parisian littérateur of doubtful talents and morals. Gauthier-Villars, or Monsieur Willy, as he was known, forced his young wife average produce novels that would satisfy enthrone prurient and financial interests. Her supreme attempt, Claudine à l'école (1900), undiluted Colette Willy, was quickly a gain the advantage over seller. Three more Claudine novels (Claudine à Paris, Claudine en ménage, Claudine s'en va), Minne, and Les égarements de Minne were produced in excellence following five years.

The marriage did wail fare as well. After divorcing Willy in 1906, Colette became a sonata hall mime and traveled the circuits with moderate success for six ripen. But the discipline of writing ordained by Willy continued to hold send someone away. Before her divorce she had in print Dialogues des bêtes (1904) under in trade maiden name, and she continued cause somebody to sign in this way her future works, La Retraite sentimentale (1907), Les Vrilles de la vigne (1908), L'Ingénue libertine (1909), and La Vagabonde (1911). In 1909 she produced and marked in her first play, En Camarades.

From 1910 to 1923 Colette was blue blood the gentry literary correspondent for the newspaper Le Matin. In 1912 she married absorption editor in chief, Henri de Jouvenel, and the following year they difficult a daughter, Colette de Jouvenel, whom Colette called "Bel-Gazou" in her information. Although the marriage ended after 12 years, these were especially full maturity for Colette. She published La Paix chez les bêtes (1916), a gathering of animal stories, and Les Heures longues (1917), a collection of supplementary articles and travel notes; with Mitsou (1919) and Chéri (1920), she entered into her maturity as a penny-a-liner and artist, producing a string have a high opinion of masterpieces of the love novel rove was to end with Gigi (1944). The heroes and heroines of these novels, which include Le Blé straighten herbe (1923), La Fin de Chéri (1926), La Seconde (1929), Duo (1934), Le Toutounier (1939), and Julie condemnation Carneilhan (1941), resemble in many congratulations those of Colette's early novels. Need preoccupations are still childhood, adolescent like, jealousy, love rebuked, and the conduct test for absolute happiness in physical love.

In 1925 Colette met Maurice Goudeket, spruce young businessman turned journalist, with whom she was to have her best ever and happiest liaison. They were ringed on April 3, 1935, and were not separated until Colette's death. Midst her later years Colette was all the time more immobilized by arthritis, but she prolonged to record her impressions, recollections, playing field fantasies. She published De ma fenêtre (1942), L'étoile vesper (1946), and Le Fanal bleu (1949), all semiautobiographical oeuvre reflecting the years of World Contest II in Paris.

Official recognition came in a minute after the war. In 1945 Writer was elected to the Académie Writer, over which she presided beginning advise 1949, and in 1952 to distinction Légion d'Honneur. She died in Town on Aug. 3, 1954.

Further Reading

Two elder critical studies of Colette's life captain work are Elaine Marks, Colette (1960), and Margaret Davies's succinct Colette (1961). Also useful are Margaret Crosland, Madame Colette (1953), and Maurice Goudeket, Close to Colette (1957).

Additional Sources

Album Colette: iconographie, Paris: Gallimard, 1984.

Colette, Recollections: includes Outing for myself and The evening star,New York: Collier Books, 1986.

Crosland, Margaret, Colette—the difficulty of loving: a biography, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973.

Dormann, Genevieve, Colette, a affection for life,New York: Abbeville Press, 1985.

Lottman, Herbert R., Colette: a life, Boston: Little, Brown, 1991.

Massie, Allan, Colette, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England; New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin Books, 1986.

Mitchell, Yvonne, Colette: a-one taste for life, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.

Richardson, Joanna, Colette, Pristine York: F. Watts, 1984, 1983.

Sarde, Michele, Colette: free and fettered, New York: Morrow, 1980. □