Overview

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873–1954), one of the most popular and best loved of modern French writers, became known simply as Colette when she married in 1893. Her husband, a Parisian man-about-town and the son of a major publisher, made use of her literary talents by publishing her first several novels under his own name — his only changes, evidently, being to make them more prurient. But eventually she broke free of this unhappy marriage and took flight on her own, as a fiction writer, a journalist, and an actress. By the time Chéri was published in 1920, Colette had become well known both as a writer and as a personality and was entering a period of rich personal growth and happiness.
Published when the author, like her heroine, was in her late 40s, Chéri is a delicate analysis of a May-December romance. The story of a love affair between Léa, a still-beautiful 49-year-old ex-courtesan, and Chéri, a handsome but...