An edition of Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs (1948)

Our Lady of the Flowers

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Our Lady of the Flowers
Jean Genet, Jean Genet
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  • 3.2 (6 ratings) ·
  • 70 Want to read
  • 2 Currently reading
  • 7 Have read

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Last edited by Jenner
October 25, 2021 | History
An edition of Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs (1948)

Our Lady of the Flowers

  • 3.2 (6 ratings) ·
  • 70 Want to read
  • 2 Currently reading
  • 7 Have read

Our Lady of the Flowers (Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs) is the debut novel of French writer Jean Genet, first published in 1943. The free-flowing, poetic novel is a largely autobiographical account of a man's journey through the Parisian underworld. The characters are drawn after their real-life counterparts, who are mostly homosexuals living on the fringes of society.

The novel tells the story of Divine, a drag queen who, when the novel opens, has died of tuberculosis and been canonised as a result. The narrator tells us that the stories he is telling are mainly to amuse himself whilst he passes his sentence in prison – and the highly erotic, often explicitly sexual, stories are spun to assist his masturbation. Jean-Paul Sartre called it "the epic of masturbation".

Divine lives in an attic room overlooking Montmartre cemetery, which she shares with various lovers, the most important of whom is a pimp called Darling Daintyfoot. One day Darling brings home a young hoodlum and murderer, dubbed Our Lady of the Flowers. Our Lady is eventually arrested and tried, and executed. Death and ecstasy accompany the acts of every character, as Genet performs a transvaluation of all values, making betrayal the highest moral value, murder an act of virtue and sexual appeal.

Publish Date
Publisher
Bantam Books
Language
English
Pages
307

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Previews available in: English French

Edition Availability
Cover of: Our Lady of Flowers
Our Lady of Flowers
2004, Olympia Press
in English
Cover of: Our Lady of the Flowers
Our Lady of the Flowers
1991, Grove Press
in English
Cover of: Our Lady of Flowers
Our Lady of Flowers
March 1976, Grove Press, Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated
in English
Cover of: Our Lady of the Flowers
Our Lady of the Flowers
1968, Bantam Books
in English
Cover of: Our Lady of the Flowers
Our Lady of the Flowers
1968, Bantam Books
in English
Cover of: Our lady of the flowers.
Our lady of the flowers.
1965, Modern Library
in English
Cover of: Our Lady of the Flowers.
Our Lady of the Flowers.
1964, Bantam Books
in English
Cover of: Our Lady of the Flowers
Our Lady of the Flowers
1963, Grove Press
in English
Cover of: Our Lady of the Flowers.
Our Lady of the Flowers.
1963, Grove Press
in English
Cover of: Notre Dame Des Fleurs
Notre Dame Des Fleurs
Publish date unknown, Folio
Mass Market Paperback in French

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Translation of Notre Dame des Fleurs

Published in
New York
Series
Bantam modern classics, QY4195

The Physical Object

Pagination
307 p. ;
Number of pages
307

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL17949309M

First Sentence

"Our Lady of the Flowers, which is often considered to be Genet's masterpiece, was written entirely in the solitude of a prison cell."

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
October 25, 2021 Edited by Jenner Merge works
December 15, 2009 Edited by WorkBot link works
October 8, 2008 Created by ImportBot Imported from Miami University of Ohio MARC record