The Only Son (First U.S. Edition)

Stéphane Audeguy (author); John Cullen (translator)

ISBN 10: 0151013292 / ISBN 13: 9780151013296

Published by Harcourt, Orlando, 2008

About this Item

REVIEW copy. First printing of the first U.S. edition, with full letter line. A fine copy in a fine jacket. A clean, tight, unread copy with price ($25.00) intact on front flap. Comes with archival-quality jacket protector. REVIEW copy with publicity material laid in. Translated from the French (Fils Unique). Won the Prix des Deux Magots.

Seller Inventory # FLAHIVE-1084

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Only Son (First U.S. Edition)
• Publisher: Harcourt, Orlando
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151013292
• ISBN 13: 9780151013296
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

Jean-Jacques Rousseau mentions his older brother François only two times in his classic Confessions. In The Only Son, Stéphane Audeguy resurrects Rousseau's forgotten brother in a picaresque tale that brings to life the secret world of eighteenth-century Paris.

Instructed at an early age in the philosophy of libertinage by a decadent aristocrat and later apprenticed to a clock maker, François is ultimately disowned by his family and flees to Paris's underworld. There he finds work in a brothel that caters to politicians and clergy and begins his personal study of the varieties of sexual desire—to its most arcane proclivities. Audeguy uses the libertine's progress to explore the interplay between the individual and society, much in the tradition of Jean-Jacques, but with a very different emphasis. Bold, erotic, and historically fascinating, The Only Son is, in many ways, the anti-Confessions—François' own, decidedly different, portrait of human nature.

About the Author

STÉPHANE AUDEGUY lives in Paris, where he teaches the history of cinema and arts.