For the first time available from Penguin Classics U.S., a new translation for one of the greatest writers of twentieth-century France

A Penguin Classic

Claudine lives in a large house with a rose-filled garden and a vegetable patch smelling of tomato leaves and apricots. Beyond her house is the village, where traveling performers stop for the night and wedding feasts take place under a bright summer moon. Inside her house are Mama, who loves animals, Papa, who lost his leg in the war, and a library full of forbidden and irresistible books . . .

Based on Colette’s own early life, Claudine’s House is a rich and enchanting depiction of childhood, animals, flowers, trees, books, families, and love in late-nineteenth-century France.