Endearing, self-absorbed, seventeen-year-old Cecile is the very essence of untroubled amorality. Freed from the stifling constraints of boarding school, she joins her father--a handsome, still-young widower with a wandering eye--for a carefree, two-month summer vacation in a beautiful villa outside of Paris with his latest mistress, Elsa. Cecile cherishes the free-spirited moments she and her father share, while plotting her own sexual adventures with a "tall and almost beautiful" law student. But the arrival of her late mother's best friend, Anne, intrudes upon a young girl's pleasures. And when a relationship begins to develop between the adults, Cecile and her lover set in motion a plan to keep them apart...with tragic, unexpected consequences.

The internationally beloved story of a precocious teenager's attempts to understand and control the world around her, Francoise Sagan's "Bonjour Tristesse" is a beautifully composed, wonderfully ambiguous celebration of sexual liberation, at once sympathetic and powerfully unsparing.

Francoise Sagan is best known for her first novel, "Bonjour Tristesse," which caused a scandal when she first published it at the age of eighteen in 1953. But her second novel, "A Certain Smile," less shocking and more psychologically convincing, was preferred by many critics. Like "Bonjour Tristesse," this story is set in Paris in the 1950s and told by a young student bored by her law books, restless and curious about love and sex. She is fond of her loyal boyfriend, but he, too, bores her. His worldly uncle strikes her as more exciting, appealingly risky and forbidden. Frank and spontaneous, vulnerable and cruel, thoughtless and insightful, Sagan's young narrator explores such perennial themes as unrequited love and the precarious balance of irrational emotions and self-restraint.This edition includes a new foreword by Diane Johnson, author of the best-selling novels "Le Divorce "and "L'Affaire." "The second book is now out, and so is the verdict. Sagan's novel "Un Certain Sourire," written in two months, is the new literary sensation of Paris."--"Time" "Miss Sagan is a technician of the highest order, working with exceptional economy and elegance in the tradition of Colette and Benjamin Constant."--"Atlantic" "The reader is given the feeling of having opened a young girl's intimate diary by mistake. But whoever put such a diary down?--especially when the author is as sensitive, experienced, gifted and freshly talented as Mlle. Sagan "--"San Francisco Examiner" " Sagan's] style is honest, direct, and her dialogue true. But for her sake let's hold back those invidious comparisons. Colette indeed She might turn out to be Sagan."--"Saturday Review"

Sylish, shimmering and amoral, Sagan's tale of adolescence and betrayal on the French Riviera was her masterpiece, published when she was just eighteen. However, this frank and explicit novella was considered too daring for 1950s Britain, and sexual scenes were removed for the English publication. Now this fresh and accurate new translation presents the uncensored text in full for the first time. Bonjour Tristesse tells the story of Cecile, who leads a carefree life with her widowed father and his young mistresses until, one hot summer on the Riviera, he decides to remarry - with devastating consequences. In A Certain Smile, which is also included in this volume, Dominique, a young woman bored with her lover, begins an encounter with an older man that unfolds in unexpected and troubling ways. Both novellas have been freshly translated by Heather Lloyd and include an introduction by Rachel Cusk. Heather Lloyd has also written a new afterword for this edition. Francoise Sagan was born in France in 1935. Bonjour tristesse (1954), published when she was just 19, became a succes de scandale and even earned its author a papal denunciation. Sagan went on to write many other novels, plays and screenplays, and died in 2004. Heather Lloyd was previously Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Glasgow, and has published work on both Bonjour tristesse and Francoise Sagan. Rachel Cusk is the author of Saving Agnes (1993), which won the Whitbread First Novel Award; A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother (2001); and Arlington Park (2006), shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction. Her most recent book is Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation (2012). 'Funny, thoroughly immoral and thoroughly French' The Times

A Hay Festival and The Poole VOTE 100 BOOKS for Women Selection 'Late into the night we talked of love, of its complications. In my father's eyes they were imaginary. . . This conception of rapid, violent and passing love affairs appealed to my imagination. I was not at the age when fidelity is attractive. I knew very little about love.' The French Riviera: home to the Beautiful People. And none are more beautiful than Cecile, a precocious seventeen-year-old, and her father Raymond, a vivacious libertine. Charming, decadent and irresponsible, the golden-skinned duo are dedicated to a life of free love, fast cars and hedonistic pleasures. But then, one long, hot summer Raymond decides to marry, and Cecile and her lover Cyril feel compelled to take a hand in his amours, with tragic consequences. Bonjour Tristesse scandalized 1950s France with its portrayal of teenager terrible Cecile, a heroine who rejects conventional notions of love, marriage and responsibility to choose her own sexual freedom.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

This is a new release of the original 1957 edition.

This is a new release of the original 1957 edition.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!