Creating Colette: Vol. 2, from Baroness to Woman of Letters 1912-1954

The life of Colette (1873-1954) was too large for one book; this second, concluding volume opens with the death of her mother and her marriage to the editor in chief of the influential newspaper Le Matin. Colette's chameleon-like persona appears here in all its incarnations: novelist, actress, journalist, raconteur, romantic. The authors meticulously trace her self-willed ascension to the status of icon and show why her legend endures. Colette was the first female member of the Acadmie Goncourt and the first female writer given a state funeral, in 1954.