Book description
In these two superb stories of the politics of love, Colette is at her
witty, instinctive best. Gigi is being educated in the skills of the
Courtesan: to choose cigars, to eat lobster, to enter a world where a
woman's chief weapon is her body. However, when it comes to the question
of Gaston Lachaille, very rich and very bored, Gigi does not want to
obey the rules. In 'The Cat', a wonderful story of burgeoning sexuality
and blossoming love, an exquisite strong-minded Russian Blue is
struggling for mastery of Alain with his seductive fianc-e, Camille.
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.
