The End of Youth: The Life and Work of Alain-Fournier - Softcover

Robert Gibson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 095475865X ISBN 13: 9780954758653

Publisher: Impress Books, 2007

Synopsis

For over half a century, Robert Gibson has published extensively on Alain-Fournier's life and work and is now acknowledged as the leading authority on this subject in the English-speaking world. His previous book on Fournier, "The Land Without a Name", was widely praised. In the thirty years since this was published, much new material has come to light. This includes biographical and photographic material about the two great loves of Fournier's life, the hitherto elusive Yvonne de Quiévrecourt and "Simone", the leading boulevard actress of her day; a host of letters to and from Fournier's friends and fellow-writers; a substantial compilation of his work as a prolific literary gossip columnist; the complete drafts of his second novel and the plays left unfinished when he went off to the war in 1914; and, finally, his body, unearthed in the woods near Verdun where it had lain undetected for three-quarters of a century. In the light of all this, Gibson now provides a re-appraisal of Fournier's complex love-life, his undervalued career as a journalist, a re-examination of the long and complicated genesis of "Le Grand Mealnes", the fullest analysis in any language of all his poetry and prose together with an authoritative overview of the remarkable range of critical interpretations to which his haunting masterpiece has been subject. The result is a compelling piece of literary detective-work and a human story sensitively and movingly told. Lavishly illustrated, this is a book which will appeal both to the serious scholar and the general reader.

About this title

Review:

Virginia Woolf insists that every great autobiography must reveal two faces of its subject: truth and personality. Gibson shines in both realms, giving us enormous amounts of expertly organised factual information, all the while accomplishing the far more difficult task of recreating the author's personality: letting us see and feel the world as Fournier might have experienced it. --Michael Pastore, Booklovers Review

A complete reappraisal of Alain-Fournier's life and works in this compelling and haunting piece of literary detective work. --London Review of Books

Robert Gibson has written a fine, final version of his acclaimed biography of Alain-Fournier. --Michèle Roberts, The Independent

About the Author:

Robert Gibson is a retired Professor of French from the University of Kent. He lives and writes in Sidmouth, Devon. His previous books include: The Quest of Alain-Fournier (1953), Modern French Poets on Poetry (1961), and A Land without a Name (1975). Best of Enemies, first published in 1995, has been published by Impress Books in a fully updated and revised edition for the centenary of the Entente Cordiale in 2004.

About this edition

• Publisher: Impress Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 095475865X
• ISBN 13: 9780954758653
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 388