Marguerite Yourcenar's Books

How Many Years

A Memoir

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Marguerite Yourcenar, one of France's most celebrated authors, here continues the absorbing tale of her background and origins. The first volume of her autobiographical trilogy, Dear Departed, was devoted to her maternal forebears. The current book, originally published in 1977 under the title Archives du Nord and now making its first appearance in English, introduces us to her father's side of the family. Yourcenar takes us back in time, to relive the tumultuous history of northeastern France through the eyes of a remarkable gallery of ancestors: canonesses and matriarchs, statesmen and scoundrels, merchants and artists (the painter Peter Paul Rubens married into the family). But the central character in the narrative is the individual who had the greatest formative influence on Yourcenar: her father, Michel de Crayencour, who educated her, encouraged her literary ambitions, and fostered in her the intellectual breadth, originality, and subtlety that are so characteristic of her work.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

396

Publisher

Farrar Straus & Giroux

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374524939

ISBN 13

9780374524937

A Blue Tale and Other Stories

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

A Blue Tale and Other Stories

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Three short stories by a Belgian writer (1903-1987), written in her youth. The title story is on Greek treasure hunters who kidnap a deaf-mute girl to lead them to a cave of sapphires and are punished for it, while An Evil Spell is on sorcery in an Italian village.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

134

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226965309

ISBN 13

9780226965307

Fires

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Fires

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Fires consists of nine monologues and narratives based on classical Greek stories. Antigone, Clytemnestra, Phaedo, Sappho are all mythical figures whose stories are mingled with contemporary themes. Interspersed are highly personal narratives, reflecting on a time of profound inner crisis in the author's life. "The unwritten novel among the fantasies and aphorisms of Fires is a classic tale."—Stephen Koch, New York Times Book Review

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

154

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226965287

ISBN 13

9780226965284

Dear Departed

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Dear Departed

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

First published in French in 1974 under the title 'Souvenirs Pieux', DEAR DEPARTED is the first volume of a trilogy by Marguerite Yourcenar, one of the most celebrated French writers of the century, devoted to her own origins and background. Yourcenar describes the events surrounding her birth in 1903, then takes us back through the centuries to meet her mother's forebears: soldiers, essayists, idealists, heroines, even ambassadors. Throughout, the history of the family serves as a window on the history of a rapidly-changing Europe.Using memoirs, letters and momentos, Yourcenar richly evokes both the larger events on the European stage and the rhythms and textures of everyday existence. Though rarely visible, Yourcenar is everywhere present, her perceptions rendered in her unmistakable voice. The book is a tour-de-force of historical and literary imagination.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

346

Publisher

Virago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1860493548

ISBN 13

9781860493546

A Coin in Nine Hands

A Novel

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

A Coin in Nine Hands

A Novel

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

During the space of a day in Rome in 1933, a ten-lira coin passes through the hands of nine people—including an aging artist, a prostitute, and a would-be assassin of Mussolini. The coin becomes the symbol of contact between human beings, each lost in private passions and nearly impenetrable solitude. "A Coin in Nine Hands has . . . passages that move close to poetry and a story that belongs in both literature and history."—Doris Grumbach, Los Angeles Times Book Review "What lingers at the end of A Coin in Nine Hands is the shadowiness and puppetlike vagueness of the Dictator, and the compelling specificity of the so-called 'common people' revolving all around him."—Anne Tyler, The New Republic "Within a few pages we have met half the major characters in this haunting, brilliantly constructed novel. . . . The studied perfection, the structural intricacy and brevity remind one of Camus. Yet by comparison, Yourcenar's prose is lavish, emotional and imagistic."—Cynthia King, Houston Post "Transcends its specific time and place to become a portrait of vividly delineated characters caught in the vise of a tragically familiar political situation."—Publisher's Weekly Best known as the author of Memoirs of Hadrian and The Abyss, Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-87) achieved countless literary honors and was the first woman ever elected to the Académie Française.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

186

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226965279

ISBN 13

9780226965277

Memoirs of Hadrian

And Reflections on the Composition of Memoirs of Hadrian

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Memoirs of Hadrian

And Reflections on the Composition of Memoirs of Hadrian

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Hadrian, approaching death, writes a valedictory letter to the young Marcus Aurelius, next-but-one in the line of succession. Hadrian describes his accession and explains the philosophy that informed his rule over the powerful and far-flung Empire.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

346

Publisher

Harvill Secker

Published Date

ISBN 10

0436592517

ISBN 13

9780436592515

Mishima

A Vision of the Void

By: Marguerite Yourcenar,Alberto Manguel

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Mishima

A Vision of the Void

By: Marguerite Yourcenar,Alberto Manguel

On November 25, 1970, Japan's most renowned postwar novelist, Yukio Mishima, stunned the world by committing ritual suicide. Here, Marguerite Yourcenar, a brilliant reader of Mishima and a scholar with an eye for the cultural roles of fiction, unravels the author's life and politics: his affection for Western culture, his family and his homosexuality, his brilliant writings, and his carefully premeditated death.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

174

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226965325

ISBN 13

9780226965321

The Abyss

A Novel

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Abyss

A Novel

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

The story of the fate of two cousins in sixteenth century northern France. The younger, sixteen-year-old Henry Maximilian, has set out to become a soldier and a poet. The elder, twenty-two-year-old Zeno, has left the seminary to make himself an alchemist-philosopher.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

386

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374516669

ISBN 13

9780374516666

Fires

By: Marguerite Yourcenar,Dori Katz

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Fires

By: Marguerite Yourcenar,Dori Katz

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

129

Publisher

New York : Farrar, Straus, Giroux

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374155003

ISBN 13

9780374155001

Mishima

A Vision of the Void

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Mishima

A Vision of the Void

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

152

Publisher

Farrar Straus Giroux

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374520615

ISBN 13

9780374520618

A Blue Tale and Other Stories

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

A Blue Tale and Other Stories

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

134

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226965309

ISBN 13

9780226965307

Memoirs of Hadrian

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Memoirs of Hadrian

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Both an exploration of character and a reflection on the meaning of history, Memoirs of Hadrian has received international acclaim since its first publication in France in 1951. In it, Marguerite Yourcenar reimagines the Emperor Hadrian's arduous boyhood, his triumphs and reversals, and finally, as emperor, his gradual reordering of a war-torn world, writing with the imaginative insight of a great writer of the twentieth century while crafting a prose style as elegant and precise as those of the Latin stylists of Hadrian's own era.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

407

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374529264

ISBN 13

9780374529260

Two Lives and a Dream

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Two Lives and a Dream

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Set in Rembrandt's Amsterdam, "An Obscure Man" is the story of Nathanaël—innocent, open to experience—born like Everyman upon the stream of life. In "A Lovely Morning," Nathanaël's young son joins a touring company of Jacobean actors. "Anna, soror . . . ," the final tale, is an account of illicit passion in the baroque world of Naples. "An Obscure Man swarms with life. This intricately researched, imaginative, beautifully written tale of a young man's brief life in the mid-17th century is entirely engrossing."—Leona Weiss, San Francisco Chronicle "In these three stories, [Yourcenar] succeeds in making the essences of these past lives a part of the reader's future through the sheer intensity of their portrayal."—Margaret Ezell, Houston Chronicle

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

256

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226965295

ISBN 13

9780226965291

Fires

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Fires

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

154

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226965287

ISBN 13

9780226965284

A Coin in Nine Hands

A Novel

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

A Coin in Nine Hands

A Novel

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

186

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226965279

ISBN 13

9780226965277

Mishima

A Vision of the Void

By: Marguerite Yourcenar,Alberto Manguel

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Mishima

A Vision of the Void

By: Marguerite Yourcenar,Alberto Manguel

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

174

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226965325

ISBN 13

9780226965321

The Lover, Wartime Notebooks, Practicalities

Introduction by Rachel Kushner

By: Marguerite Duras

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Lover, Wartime Notebooks, Practicalities

Introduction by Rachel Kushner

By: Marguerite Duras

A hardcover omnibus edition of the French writer's most famous novel—the basis for the film Memoir of War—alongside her fascinating wartime writings and a collection of intimate autobiographical essays. Marguerite Duras was one of the leading intellectuals and novelists of postwar France, but her wartime writings were not published in full until after her death. The Wartime Notebooks trace Duras's formative experiences—including her difficult childhood in Indochina and her harrowing wait for her husband's return from Nazi internment—revealing the personal history behind her bestselling novels. The Lover is the best known of these; set in prewar Indochina, its haunting tale of a tumultuous affair between an adolescent French girl and her wealthy Chinese lover is based on her own life. In spare and luminous prose, Duras evokes life on the margins in the waning days of France's colonial empire, and the passionate relationship between two unforgettable outcasts. Practicalities is a collection of small and intensely personal pieces Duras dictated near the end of her life. These deceptively simple meditations on motherhood, domesticity, sex, love, alcohol, writing, and more are witty, earthy, outspoken, and surprisingly fresh and relevant today.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

505

Publisher

Everyman's Library

Published Date

ISBN 10

1101907932

ISBN 13

9781101907931

Oriental Tales

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Oriental Tales

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

This collection includes: How Wand-fo was Saved, Marko's Smile, The Milk of Death, The Last Love of Princess Genji, The Man Who Loved the Nereids, Our Lady of the Swallows, Aphrodissia; the Widow, Kali Beheaded, The End of Marko Kraljevic, The Sadness of Cornelius Berg, and a Postscript by the Author. "From China to Japan, the Balkans to India, Oriental Tales addresses love, conquest, betrayal, murder, religion, and passion in an eloquent and exquisite telling."--Kirkus Reviews.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

162

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374519978

ISBN 13

9780374519971

The Abyss

A Novel

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Abyss

A Novel

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

386

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374516669

ISBN 13

9780374516666

That Mighty Sculptor, Time

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

That Mighty Sculptor, Time

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

This posthumously published collection of essays takes up such diverse subjects as the poet Oppian, Tantrism, the feasts of the Christian year, Durer, the Japanese studies of Ivan Morris, the erotic mysticism of the Gita-Govinda, the eternal spirit of Andalusia, and Bede's Ecclesiastical History. The title esay consider's time's transforming effect on arrt, meditating on the erosion of a statue and the resulting production of a new, sublime work of art.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

242

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374523754

ISBN 13

9780374523756

Anna, soror...

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Anna, soror...

By: Marguerite Yourcenar

Anna, soror... fut écrit en quelques semaines du printemps 1925, au cours d'un séjour à Naples et immédiatement au retour de celui-ci [...] Jamais invention romanesque ne fut plus immédiatement inspirée par les lieux où on la plaçait. J'ai goûté pour la première fois avec Anna, soror... le suprême privilège du romancier, celui de se perdre tout entier dans ses personnages, ou de se laisser posséder par eux. Durant ces quelques semaines, et tout en continuant à faire les gestes et à assumer les rapports habituels de l'existence, j'ai vécu sans cesse à l'intérieur de ces deux corps et de ces deux âmes, me glissant d'Anna en Miguel et de Miguel en Anna, avec cette indifférence au sexe qui est, je crois, celle de tous les créateurs en présence de leurs créatures." Marguerite Yourcenar.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

Publisher

Editions Gallimard

Published Date

ISBN 10

2072535794

ISBN 13

9782072535796

Book's by Marguerite Yourcenar

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email