French Women from Lightholder Books

Gigi / Chance Acquaintances / Julie de Carneilhan by Colette. 1952 Farrar Straus Young, 315 pages. Colette was a prolific French author, former mime and actress, and "the only great woman writer in France" according to De Beauvoir. This edition includes her most famous work Gigi, a tale of an unwitting courtesan-to-be. Julie De Carneilhan was written in the same… Read more about this item

The Pure and the Impure by Colette. 1967 Farrar, Straus & Giroux, first thus, 175 pages. From the New York Review of Books: "Colette herself considered The Pure and the Impure her best book, 'the nearest I shall ever come to writing an autobiography.' This guided tour of the erotic netherworld with which Colette was so intimately acquainted begins in… Read more about this item

The Prime of Life by Simone de Beauvoir. 1962 World Publishing Company, first U.S. edition, 479 pages. The second installment of de Beauvoir's lifelong autobiography project, this volume covers her move to Paris, meeting Sartre, and developing as a writer. Condition: VG/G. Some wear to jacket, boards bowed a bit, pages clean. "To have a door I could shut was still the… Read more about this item

The Blue Lantern by Colette. 1963, Secker & Warburg, first thus, 161 pages. Written between 1946 and 1948, this was Colette's last major work, and explores the traveling of her mind and her immediate surroundings, as she is in immense pain from arthritis. Condition: Good/Good. Browning and wear to jacket, browning on end papers, owner name in blue marker which transferred… Read more about this item

All Said and Done by Simone de Beauvoir. 1974 Putnam, first U.S. edition, 463 Pages. This is the last installment of de Beauvoir's autobiography, covering the last ten years of her life. Condition: VG/VG. Some fading to jacket spine, shelf wear. "My life: it is both intimately known and remote; it defines me and yet I stand outside it."

When Things of the Spirit Come First by Simone De Beauvoir. 1982 Pantheon, first U.S. edition, 213 pages. Includes five early semi-autobiographical short stories of the life of an intellectual French woman. Condition: VG. Some smudging to back cover, bumps on spine. "She liked crying in churches best..."

The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir, 1969 Putnam, first US edition, 254 pages. The precursor to for Ferrante's Days of Abandonment. Condition: Good+/VG. Chips and shelf wear to jacket, still bright, some wear to the boards, pencil mark on the end paper. "Think of something else---anything else: think of yesterday, a calm, ordinary, easy-flowing day, in spite of the nervous tension… Read more about this item

She Came to Stay by Simone de Beauvoir. 1954 World Publishing Company, first U.S. edition, 404 pages. This fictional account of de Beauvoir's relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre and Olga Kosakiewicz (to whom the book is dedicated) on the eve of war. A threesome gone wrong. Condition: Good/VG. Jacket worn and browned, chips along edges, water stain on bottom of jacket, boards… Read more about this item