Nobel-prize winner Francois Mauriac's masterpiece is Therese Desqueyroux, the story of a complex woman trapped by provincial life. First published in 1927, this astonishing and daring novel has echoes of Madame Bovary and has recently been made into a ravishing film starring Amelie actress Audrey Tautou. Therese Desqueyroux walks free from court, acquitted of trying to poison her husband. Everyone knew she'd tried to do it, but family honour was more important than the truth. As she travels home to the gloomy forests of Argelouse, Therese looks back over the marriage that brought her nothing but stifling darkness, and wonders, has she really escaped punishment or is it only just about to begin? Francois Mauriac was born in Bordeaux in 1885. He left his university studies to devote himself to writing, and published a collection of poems, Les Mains jointes (Clasped Hands), in 1909. He married in 1913 and the following year was mobilized to serve in the First World War with the Auxilliary Medical Squad in Thessalonica. Mauriac's major literary breakthrough came in 1922 with a novel called Le Baiser au lepreux (A Kiss for the Leper). His most famous work, Therese Desqueroux, appeared in 1927 and has been made into a film twice: first in 1962, with Emmanuelle Riva in the lead role, and more recently in 2012, in a version starring Audrey Tautou. In 1933 Mauriac was elected a Member of the French Academy and in 1952 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in Paris in 1970. 'A great novel ... the brilliance of its structure and the elegance of its prose never fail to take my breath away' - Beryl Bainbridge

Fran_ois Mauriac, winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize in literature, is one of the most prominent Catholic novelists of the modern era, yet in the English speaking world he is known primarily for only one novel, 1927's ThZr_se Desqueyroux. In this new translation of two other seminal works by Mauriac, the 1930 novel What Was Lost and its theoretical basis, the 1929 essay God and Mammon, Raymond N. MacKenzie re-introduces Mauriac to the English speaking world. Featuring a scholarly introduction by MacKenzie that provides background on Mauriac's religious and artistic struggles, this new edition will delight scholars of Mauriac as well as contemporary readers previously unfamiliar with his work.

France s great Catholic author and Nobel Prize winner unfolds his thoughts on a variety of topics in a series of letters written to such men as Albert Camus, Jean Cocteau, Pierre Schaeffer and Jacques Riviere. Readers of Proust s Way, Men I Hold Great and The Stumbling Block will find intense interest in Mauriac s reflections on the death of Georges Bernanos, the Claudel-Gide correspondence and the Routier youth movement.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

In one of Mauriac's lesser known novels, he introduces the reader to The Frontenacs, small landed gentry of the Bordeaux region on France. This story explores the special, even sacramental, character of the family bond.

Margaret of Cortona was an Italian penitent of the Third Order of St. Francis. She was born in Laviano, near Perugia, and died in Cortona. She was canonized in 1728. She is the patron saint of the falsely accused; hoboes; homeless; insane; orphaned; mentally ill; midwives; penitents; single mothers; reformed prostitutes; third children; tramps. Saint Margaret of Cortona aroused Mauriac s interest because very little is known about her in France and she succumbed to human love and even had a child. It distracted him in a time where the Germans were all over France and he followed her wherever she led him. This is the story of one such encounter. Mauriac, Francois 1885 1970, French writer. Mauriac achieved success in 1922 and 1923 with Le Baiser au lepreux and Genitrix (tr. of both in The Family, 1930). Generally set in or near his native Bordeaux, his novels are imbued with his profound, though nonconformist, Roman Catholicism. His characters exist in a tortured universe; nature is evil and man eternally prone to sin. His major novels are The Desert of Love (1925, tr. 1929), Therese (1927, tr. 1928), and Vipers' Tangle (1932, tr. 1933). Other works include The Frontenacs (1933, tr. 1961) and Woman of the Pharisees (1941, tr. 1946); a life of Racine (1928) and of Jesus (1936, tr. 1937); and plays, notably Asmodee (1938, tr. 1939). Also a distinguished essayist, Mauriac became a columnist for Figaro after World War II. Collections of his articles and essays include Journal, 1932 39 (1947, partial tr. Second Thoughts, 1961), Proust's Way (1949, tr. 1950), and Cain, Where Is Your Brother? (tr. 1962). Mauriac received the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The thinking and suffering of the author ofRemembrance of Things Pastare intimately exposed in these letters to Mauriac. Mauriac, Francois 1885 1970, French writer. Mauriac achieved success in 1922 and 1923 with Le Baiser au lepreux and Genitrix (tr. of both in The Family, 1930). Generally set in or near his native Bordeaux, his novels are imbued with his profound, though nonconformist, Roman Catholicism. His characters exist in a tortured universe; nature is evil and man eternally prone to sin. His major novels are The Desert of Love (1925, tr. 1929), Therese (1927, tr. 1928), and Vipers' Tangle (1932, tr. 1933). Other works include The Frontenacs (1933, tr. 1961) and Woman of the Pharisees (1941, tr. 1946); a life of Racine (1928) and of Jesus (1936, tr. 1937); and plays, notably Asmodee (1938, tr. 1939). Also a distinguished essayist, Mauriac became a columnist for Figaro after World War II. Collections of his articles and essays include Journal, 1932 39 (1947, partial tr. Second Thoughts, 1961), Proust's Way (1949, tr. 1950), and Cain, Where Is Your Brother? (tr. 1962). Mauriac received the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Jean Dezert is a melancholy individual who, plagued with a terrible lack of imagination, is mortally bored. He had begun resigning himself to his own mediocrity when, one Sunday, trying to distract himself, he does what the advertisements he is handed on the streets tell him to do: he takes a hot bath with a massage, has lunch at an anti-alcoholic vegetarian restaurant, and ends his day by attending a conference about sexual health livened by a soiree. It is then that he meets the lively and wild Elvire Barrochet, who approaches him in the middle of the Jardin des Plantes and makes his life impossible. "Jean Dezert es un individuo melancolico que, aquejado de una falta atroz de imaginacion, se aburre mortalmente. Ya empezaba a resignarse a su propia mediocridad cuando, un domingo, como para intentar distraerse, decide seguir los consejos de los folletos publicitarios que le entregan por la calle: toma un bano caliente con masaje, almuerza en un restaurante vegetariano antialcoholico, y finaliza la jornada asistiendo a una conferencia sobre salud sexual amenizada con una velada musical. Es entonces cuando aparece la pizpireta y alocada Elvire Barrochet, que le aborda en pleno Jardin des Plantes para hacerle la vida imposible."

Francois Mauriac's masterpiece and one of the greatest Catholic novels, Therese Desqueyroux is the haunting story of an unhappily married young woman whose desperation drives her to thoughts of murder. Mauriac paints an unforgettable portrait of spiritual isolation and despair, but he also dramatizes the complex realities of forgiveness, grace, and redemption. Set in the countryside outside Bordeaux, in a region of overwhelming heat and sudden storms, the novel's landscape reflects the inner world of Therese, a figure who has captured the imaginations of readers for generations. Raymond N. MacKenzie's translation of Therese Desqueyroux, the first since 1947, captures the poetic lyricism of Mauriac's prose as well as the intensity of his stream-of-consciousness narrative. MacKenzie also provides notes and a biographical and interpretive introduction to help readers better appreciate the mastery of Francois Mauriac, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1952. This volume also includes a translation of "Conscience, The Divine Instinct," Mauriac's first draft of the story, never before available in English.