François Mauriac

Francois Mauriac, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1952, was famous for his subtle character portraits of the French rural classes and for depicting their struggles, aspirations and traditions. The Woman of the Pharisees, which was first published in English in 1946 and became one of Mauriac's most accomplished novels, is a penetrating evocation of the moral and religious values of a Bordeaux community. In Brigitte, we see how the ideals of...

First published in 1927 in the original French, this translation of "Thérèse Desqueyroux" by Eric Sutton was first published in the USA; New York: Boni & Liveright Inc., 1928, now public domain in the US and Canada. Thérèse Desqueyroux walks free from court, acquitted of trying to poison her husband. Everyone knew she'd tried to do it, but family honour was more important than the truth. As she travels home to the gloomy forests of Argelouse,...

The Nobel Prize—winning author of Thérèse Desqueyroux shares fascinating insights through correspondence with Albert Camus, Jean Cocteau, and others. Best known as France's great Catholic novelist, François Mauriac was also a playwright, poet, critic, journalist, and member of the Académie Française. He was an influential public intellectual who criticized the Catholic church for supporting Francisco Franco and opposed French rule in Vietnam....

The masterpiece of one of the twentieth century's greatest Catholic writers, Vipers' Tangle tells the story of Monsieur Louis, an embittered aging lawyer who has spread his misery to his entire estranged family. Louis writes a journal to explain to them-and to himself-why his soul has been deformed, why his heart seems like a foul nest of twisted serpents. Mauriac's novel masterfully explores the corruption caused by pride, avarice, and hatred, and...

François Mauriac's masterpiece and one of the greatest Catholic novels, 'Thérèse Desqueyroux' is the haunting story of an unhappily married young woman whose desperation drives her to thoughts of murder.

In this novel, Mauriac deals predominantly with "the remains of the provincial nobility, impoverished and almost ossified by ineffectuality and pride" and the radical village teacher who tried to save them from themselves.