The Lost Domain: Le Grand MeaulnesCentenary Edition - Hardcover

Alain-Fournier; Davison, Frank; Lee, Hermione

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199678685 ISBN 13: 9780199678686

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2014

Synopsis

The arrival of Augustin Meaulnes at a small provincial secondary school sets in train a series of events that will have a profound effect on his life. Lost and alone, he stumbles upon an isolated house, mysterious revels, and a beautiful girl. Determined to find the house again, and the girl with whom he has fallen in love, Meaulnes is torn between his love and competing claims of loyalty and friendship.

This edition, published to celebrate the centenary of the work's publication, reprints Frank Davison's acclaimed translation that captures the elusive poetic subtlety of the original. In her new introduction, well known biographer and critic Hermione Lee discusses the special hold the novel has on readers and the literary qualities that have made it a modern classic.

About this title

About the Author:

Alain-Fournier was the pseudonym of Henri Alban-Fournier, whose only novel, Le Grand Meaulnes (The Lost Domain) was published the year before he was killed in action in 1914, at the age of 27. Like the narrator of his novel, Alain-Fournier was the son of a schoolteacher, and a chance meeting with a girl on the banks of the Seine became the rite of passage that inspired his story.

Hermione Lee is a writer, reviewer, and broadcaster. She has written acclaimed biographies of Willa Cather, Virginia Woolf, and Edith Wharton and her many other works include critical writing on a wide range of literary figures. She was Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford before becoming President of Wolfson College. In April 2012 she co-presented, with Julian Barnes, two programmes on BBC Radio 4 about Alain-Fournier and his novel.

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. Touching and wonderfully detailed, this portrait of French life in the 1890s will make readers feel not only that they know the time and place but that they are actually there. François Seurel, a schoolmaster's son, is 15 and lives in a small village with his parents. Augustin Meaulnes is new at school, and comes to stay with the Seurel family as a boarder. Augustin is two years older and very charismatic, and the boys at the school start to call him le grand Meaulnes as a tribute. Jasmin Delouche, a physically small young man who nonetheless is cock of the walk at the school, feels supplanted by the new arrival—but for François, a whole new world of adventure has been opened. When the boys' ramblings lead them to the domain of the title and an odd party that is taking place there, events are set in motion that will change them. If this were only a chronicle of smalltown life and the ups and downs of youth, it would be a fine story, but the complications that force the boys to grow up quickly deepen the book and make it a classic. (Jan.)

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0199678685
• ISBN 13: 9780199678686
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208