The Confession of a Child of the Century

By Alfred de Musset

Book Overview

Recently made into a film starring Charlotte Gainsbourg Pete Doherty and Lily Cole this French novel of love and betrayal is now available in a new English translation for the first time in over a hundred years.

Inspired by his scandalous real-life affair with the flamboyant woman who called herself George Sand Alfred de Musset's Confession is a searingly honest passionate account of a young man's rite of passage. It tells the story of Octave desperate to be more than an 'average man' who searches for happiness first as a debauched libertine until his mistress Elise is unfaithful and then in an austere life in the countryside where he falls in love with the selfless Brigitte. But as he becomes consumed by insane jealousy and convinced that Brigitte will betray him Octave brings about his own destruction. A vivid opulent portrayal of obsession and despair this is also a philosophical portrait of a man and his times expressing the failed idealism of the Romantic generation of the early nineteenth century.

David Coward's vibrant translation is accompanied by an introduction discussing de Musset's affair with Sand and his work's place in the confessional genre. This edition contains a chronology notes and further reading.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0141391855
• ISBN13: 9780141391854
• Release Date: March 2014
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.1" x 7.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

excellent livre de De musset.

lE LIVRE de de Musset incarne le génie litéraire de son auteur qui est l'un des grands as du romantisme francais .De musset , qui s'est longtemps imposé par son style maniériste , fait montre ici de sa capacité de se réapproprier l'éspace vécu pour en livrer le cru d'une facon admirable et plein de résonances littéraires qui classent parmi les plus grands poétes et écrivains francais