This collection of classic titles by Beauvoir her most well know writings, The Second Sex and The Ethics Of Ambiguity as well as a biography of her life and a rare interview on her book The Second Sex. French writer and feminist, and Existentialist. She is known primarily for her treatise The Second Sex (1949), a scholarly and passionate plea for the abolition of what she called the myth of the "eternal feminine." It became a classic of feminist literature during the 1960s. Her novels expounded the major Existential themes, demonstrating her conception of the writer's commitment to the times. She Came To Stay (1943) treats the difficult problem of the relationship of a conscience to "the other". Of her other works of fiction, perhaps the best known is The Mandarins (1954), a chronicle of the attempts of post-World War II intellectuals to leave their "mandarin" (educated elite) status and engage in political activism. She also wrote four books of philosophy, including The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947). Several volumes of her work are devoted to autobiography which constitute a telling portrait of French intellectual life from the 1930s to the 1970s. In addition to treating feminist issues, de Beauvoir was concerned with the issue of aging, which she addressed in A Very Easy Death (1964), on her mother's death in a hospital. In 1981 she wrote A Farewell to Sartre, a painful account of Sartre's last years. Simone de Beauvoir revealed herself as a woman of formidable courage and integrity, whose life supported her thesis: the basic options of an individual must be made on the premises of an equal vocation for man and woman founded on a common structure of their being, independent of their sexuality. Table of Contents: The Second Sex, On the publication of The Second Sex, interview The Ethics of Ambiguity, Biography

The classic manifesto of the liberated woman, this book explores every facet of a woman's life.

Despite growing interest in her philosophy, Simone de Beauvoir remains widely misunderstood. She is typically portrayed as a mere intellectual follower of her companion, Jean-Paul Sartre. In Philosophical Writings, Beauvoir herself shows that nothing could be further from the truth. Beauvoir's philosophical work suffers from a lack of English-language translation or, worse, mistranslation into heavily condensed popular versions. Philosophical Writings provides an unprecedented collection of complete, scholarly editions of philosophical texts that cover the first twenty-three years of Beauvoir's career, including a number of recently discovered works. Ranging from metaphysical literature to existentialist ethics, Philosophical Writings brings together diverse elements of Beauvoir's work while highlighting continuities in the development of her thought. Each of the translations features detailed notes and a scholarly introduction explaining its larger significance. Revelatory and long overdue, Philosophical Writings adds to the ongoing resurgence of interest in Beauvoir's thought and to her growing influence on today's philosophical curriculum.

This definitive biography is based on five years of interviews with de Beauvoir, and is written with her full cooperation. Bair penetrates the mystique of this brilliant and often paradoxical woman, who has been called one of the great minds of the 20th century, and surely, one of the most famously unconventional figures of her generation. "As a reference work . . . Simone de Beauvoir can be considered definitive".--The Atlantic. 16-page photographic insert.

Born in 1908, Simone de Beauvoir was a brilliant scholar and novelist, leading member of the existentialist movement and a committed socialist and feminist. Raised in a stiflingly respectable environment, as a young woman she totally rejected her parentsâ values and embarked on her literary career. With Jean-Paul Sartre she formed a unique relationship, which she described as âThe one undoubted success in my lifeâ. Later in life she was committed to achieving radical social and political change, but it was writing that gave meaning to her life; above everything, she valued her own intellectual audience.

“Like man, woman is a human being.” When The Second Sex was first published in Paris in 1949—groundbreaking, risqué, brilliantly written and strikingly modern—it provoked both outrage and inspiration. The Independent Woman contains three key chapters of Beauvoir’s masterwork, which illuminate the feminine condition and identify practical social reforms for gender equality. It captures the essence of the spirited manifesto that switched on light bulbs in the heads of a generation of women and continues to exert profound influence on feminists today.

Set in Paris on the eve of World War II, the novel draws upon Simone de Beauvoir's relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre, and the affair that almost destroyed it.