Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne (Comtesse de Lafayette) (1634-1693) was a French writer. She was born in Paris to a family of minor but rich nobility. In 1655, de La Vergne married Francois Motier, Comte de Lafayette, a widowed nobleman some eighteen years her senior, with whom she would have two sons. Settling permanently in Paris in 1659, Lafayette published, anonymously, La Princesse de Montpensier in 1662. Her most famous novel was La Princesse de Cleves, France's first historical novel, first published anonymously in 1678. An immense success, the work is often taken to be a prototype of the early psychological novel.
Adapting The Princess of Cleves to a modern language format, this book offers a new, readable translation of Madame de La Fayette's masterpiece. The work is supplemented by an Introduction and general critical commentary which aid in the proper understanding of the seventeenth-century novel. This version differs from earlier translations by including a 'Who's Who' section of brief biographical character sketches, providing the reader with a clarificaton and explanation otherwise unavailable.
This new translation of The Princesse de Cleves also includes two shorter works also attributed to Mme de Lafayette, The Princesse de Montpensier and The Comtesse de Tende.
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