Count D'Orgel's Ball (New York Review Books Classics) - Softcover

Radiguet, Raymond

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1590171381 ISBN 13: 9781590171387

Publisher: NYRB Classics, 2000

Synopsis

Count d'Orgel is handsome, charming, and carefree, a model of cool aristocratic aplomb. His wife, the Countess, is beautiful and pure and loves her husband more than anything in the world. But from the moment the d'Orgels meet and befriend the clever young François de Séryeuse backstage at the circus, all three of these supremely civilized and witty people are caught up in an ever more intricate and seductive dance of deception and self-deception. At Count d'Orgel's masquerade ball, the real disguises are those of the human heart. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Completed just before Raymond Radiguet's death at the age of twenty, Count d'Orgel's Ball is a love story that is as disturbing as it is delicious.

About this title

About the Author

Raymond Radiguet (1903–1923) was the eldest of seven children born to a poor cartoonist. He left school at fifteen and was soon contributing articles to newspapers and journals in Paris, where he became the protégé and lover of Jean Cocteau. Radiguet published poems, criticism, and a play, The Pelican, as well as a highly successful novel, The Devil in the Flesh, while leading a wild and increasingly self-destructive life. He died of typhoid, contracted from eating oysters. The manuscript of his second novel, Count d'Orgel's Ball, was prepared for posthumous publication by Cocteau.<br /><br />Jean Cocteau (1889–1963), poet, playwright, novelist, and film director, was one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century French artistic life, especially celebrated for his collaborations with such contemporaries as Picasso, Stravinsky, and Erik Satie. Among Cocteau's best-known works are the short novel Les Enfants terribles and three movies, The Blood of a Poet, Beauty and the Beast, and Orpheus.

Edition details

• Publisher: NYRB Classics
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1590171381
• ISBN 13: 9781590171387
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176