This unique collection of the greatest French classics books has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards: A History of French Literature François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel Molière: Tartuffe or the Hypocrite The Misanthrope The Miser The Imaginary Invalid The Impostures of Scapin… Jean Racine: Phaedra Pierre Corneille: The Cid Voltaire: Candide Zadig Micromegas The Huron A Philosophical Dictionary… Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Confessions Emile The Social Contract De Laclos: Dangerous Liaisons Stendhal

metropolitan France as well as by francophone authors from Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, Belgium and Switzerland, One Hundred Great French Books offers a rich, varied, and multicultural panorama of one of the most beloved and inspiring literatures in the world." --Book Jacket.

This book traces the history of French literature from its beginnings to the present. Within its remarkably brief compass, it offers a wide-ranging, personal, and detailed account of major writers and movements. Developments in French literature are presented in an innovative way, not as an even sequence of literary events but as a series of stories told at varying pace and with different kinds of focus. Readers can thus take in the broad sweep of historical change, grasp the main characteristics of major periods, or enjoy a close appraisal of individual works and their contexts. The book is written in an accessible and non-technical style that will make it attractive to students and to all those who enjoy French Literature.

An engaging, highly accessible and informative introduction to French literature from the Middle Ages to the present.

A New York Review Books Original During the eighteenth century, from the death of Louis XIV until the Revolution, French culture set the standard for all of Europe. In Sweden, Austria, Italy, Spain, England, Russia, and Germany, among kings and queens, diplomats, military leaders, writers, aristocrats, and artists, French was the universal language of politics and intellectual life. In When the World Spoke French, Marc Fumaroli presents a gallery of portraits of Europeans and Americans who conversed and corresponded in French, along with excerpts from their letters or other writings. These men and women, despite their differences, were all irresistibly attracted to the ideal of human happiness inspired by the Enlightenment, whose capital was Paris and whose king was Voltaire. Whether they were in Paris or far away, speaking French connected them in spirit with all those who desired to emulate Parisian tastes, style of life, and social pleasures. Their stories are testaments to the appeal of that famous “sweetness of life” nourished by France and its language.

With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, Camus's masterpiece gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. Behind the intrigue, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd" and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life. First published in 1946; now in translation by Matthew Ward.

An introduction to the history of French literature, covering from 842 to 1990.