Proust's Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-De-Siècle Paris

From the author of Queen of Fashion--a glittering look at fin-de-si cle Paris through the three women who inspired Proust's supreme fictional character, the Duchesse de Guermantes.

The three superstars of turn-of-the-century Parisian high society were Genevi ve Hal vy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse Adh aume de Chevign ; and lisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, Comtesse Greffulhe. All unhappily married, these women sought fulfillment by reinventing themselves as icons, and their fabled salons inspired generations of artists, composers, and writers. Caroline Weber takes us into these women's glamorous lives, showing us not only the balls, hunts, dinners, court visits, and nights at the opera but also the loneliness, rigid social rules, and arranged marriages that constricted them. Marcel Proust, as a young law student in 1892, first worshipped the three from afar and later met them and immortalized them in his celebrated composite character in In Search of Lost Time.

Author: Caroline Weber
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 11/26/2019
Pages: 752
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 2.05lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.00w x 1.60d
ISBN13: 9780345803122
ISBN10: 0345803124
BISAC Categories:
- History | Europe | France
- Literary Criticism | European | French
- Biography & Autobiography | Women

About the Author
Caroline Weber is a professor of French and Comparative Literature at Barnard College, Columbia University; she has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton. She is the author of Queen of Fashion: What Marie-Antoinette Wore to the Revolution (2006). She has written for The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, Financial Times, London Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, and New York magazine. She lives in New York City.