In her magnificent novel, Marguerite Yourcenor recreates the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world. The Emperor Hadrian, aware his demise is imminent, writes a long valedictory letter to Marcus Aurelius, his future successor. The Emperor meditates on his past, describing his accession, military triumphs, love of poetry and music, and the philosophy that informed his powerful and far-flung rule. A work of superbly detailed research and sustained empathy, Memoirs of Hadrian captures the living spirit of the Emperor and of Ancient Rome.

Both an exploration of character and a reflection on the meaning of history, "Memoirs of Hadrian" has received international acclaim since its first publication in France in 1951. In it, Marguerite Yourcenar reimagines the Emperor Hadrian's arduous boyhood, his triumphs and reversals, and finally, as emperor, his gradual reordering of a war-torn world, writing with the imaginative insight of a great writer of the twentieth century while crafting a prose style as elegant and precise as those of the Latin stylists of Hadrian's own era.

Marguerite Yourcenar instantly assumes command of our imagination in her novel "The Abyss." Almost before we know it the author establishes a scene and time, and engages us in the fate of two cousins.

"From China to Japan, the Balkans to India, "Oriental Tales" addresses love, conquest, betrayal, murder, religion, and passion in an eloquent and exquisite telling."--"Kirkus Reviews."

Fires consists of nine monologues and narratives based on classical Greek stories. Antigone, Clytemnestra, Phaedo, Sappho are all mythical figures whose stories are mingled with contemporary themes. Interspersed are highly personal narratives, reflecting on a time of profound inner crisis in the author's life. "The unwritten novel among the fantasies and aphorisms of Fires is a classic tale."-Stephen Koch, New York Times Book Review

This posthumously published collection of essays takes up such diverse subjects as the poet Oppian, Tantrism, the feasts of the Christian year, Durer, the Japanese studies of Ivan Morris, the erotic mysticism of the Gita-Govinda, the eternal spirit of Andalusia, and Bede's Ecclesiastical History. The title esay consider's time's transforming effect on arrt, meditating on the erosion of a statue and the resulting production of a new, sublime work of art.

This book of three novellas was first published in Paris in 1982, where it was hailed as the finest book of novellas since Flaubert's Trois Contes.

It was with "Alexis "that, in 1928, Marguerite Yourcenar began her career as a novelist. The book remains one of the stellar literary debuts of the century. Yourcenar has created a moving meditation on the relationship between pleasure and love.

Set in the Baltic provinces in the aftermath of World War I, Coup de Grace tells the story of an intimacy that grows between three young people hemmed in by civil war: Erick, a Prussian fighting with the White Russians against the Bolsheviks; Conrad, his best friend from childhood; and Sophie, whose unrequited love for Conrad becomes an unbearable burden.

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.

Set in Rembrandt's Amsterdam, "An Obscure Man" is the story of Nathanael--innocent, open to experience--born like Everyman upon the stream of life. In "A Lovely Morning," Nathanael's young son joins a touring company of Jacobean actors. "Anna, soror . . .," the final tale, is an account of illicit passion in the baroque world of Naples.
""An Obscure Man" swarms with life. This intricately researched, imaginative, beautifully written tale of a young man's brief life in the mid-17th century is entirely engrossing."--Leona Weiss, "San Francisco Chronicle"
"In these three stories, [Yourcenar] succeeds in making the essences of these past lives a part of the reader's future through the sheer intensity of their portrayal."--Margaret Ezell, "Houston Chronicle"