A Blue Tale & Other Stories - Hardcover

Yourcenar, Marguerite

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248 ratings by Goodreads

9780226965307: A Blue Tale & Other Stories

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226965309 ISBN 13: 9780226965307

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1995

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Published to great acclaim in France in 1993, this collection is not only a delight for Marguerite Yourcenar fans but a welcome port of entry for any reader not yet familiar with the author's lengthier, more demanding works. The sole published work of fiction by Yourcenar yet to be translated into English, this collection includes three stories written between 1927 and 1930 when the author was in her mid-twenties. These stories cover a range of themes, from an allegory on greed and a scene from the war of the sexes, to a witchhunt that obsessively creates its own quarry. For the devoted readers of Yourcenar, this collection allows a rare glimpse at the beginnings of a writer's craft. In these accomplished but forgotten pieces, edited and introduced by her biographer, Josyane Savigneau, the reader will find the blend of fable and fairy tale of Oriental Tales, the psychological chronicle of Dear Departed, the ironic realism of A Coin in Nine Hands. Read as an introduction to Yourcenar's work, the stories take us into the writer's workshop, as it were, to the early days of creation. In either case, A Blue Tale and Other Stories carries the unmistakable voice of a formidable and vastly talented writer. Marguerite Yourcenar (her pseudonym was an anagram of her family name, Crayencour) was born in Brussels in 1903 and died in Maine in 1987. One of the most respected writers in the French language, she is best known as the author of the best-selling Memoirs of Hadrian and The Abyss. She was awarded many literary honors, most notably election to the Academie Francaise in 1980, the first woman to be so honored.

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From the Back Cover:

These three stories, the last of Yourcenar's fiction to be translated into English, were written between 1927 and 1930 when the author was in her mid-twenties. "A Blue Tale" is a sensual, fantastic attempt to describe reality in tones of blue. Drawing on an ancient oral tradition, Yourcenar offers a tale of the credulity of men who are lured by riches - in this case, sapphires. "The First Evening" was originally written, though left unfinished, by Yourcenar's father, Michel de Crayencour. He exerted a strong influence on his daughter's life and on the early stages of her writing career. Yourcenar revised and completed this tale depicting a jaded French intellectual and man-of-the-world whose wedding night is disrupted by shocking news, and it was published under her name after her father's death. "The Evil Spell", like Memoirs of Hadrian, is set in the Mediterranean, a physical and spiritual place that fired Yourcenar's literary imagination. The tale reveals Yourcenar's fascination with the occult, a realm she would find herself attracted to more than once later on - most notably at a crucial turning point in The Abyss.

About the Author:

Internationally acclaimed as an anthologist, translator, essayist, novelist, and editor, Alberto Manguel is the bestselling author of several award-winning books, including A Dictionary of Imaginary Places and A History of Reading. He was born in Buenos Aires, moved to Canada in 1982 and now lives in France, where he was named a Chevalier de l'Ordre fran?ais des Arts et des Lettres.

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