The Vagabond

Colette’s great novel of the stage was based on her experiences as a struggling music hall performer following her own divorce. By turns melancholy and funny, it is a pioneering work of autofiction and a vivid portrayal of one woman’s quest for freedom.

About the author

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was born in 1873 in a village in Burgundy, France, and would later recall her bucolic home and eccentric family in the semi-fictionalized Claudine's House. At the age of twenty, she married the publisher and author 'Willy', who encouraged her to write her first four novels. The novels made her famous, but her husband, under whose name they had been published, retained her earnings. Escaping her marriage, Colette became a performer in France's music halls, an era of her life she would later describe in The Vagabond. She wrote her most famous works during the 1920s and 30s; these included Chéri, depicting a relationship between an older woman and young man, and Gigi, the story of a young girl in training to become a courtesan. Colette died in 1954.

Report

A mistress of metaphor and sparking detail, and with more punch than Proust ... Throughout this extraordinary - irreplaceable! - novel, Colette provides many exquisitely timed funny-sad turns ... And no one writes about relationships as perceptively as Colette Guardian

Product details

• Authors: Colette
• Assisted by: Belinda Jack (Translation)
• Publisher: Penguin Books Uk
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Release: 04.06.2026
• EAN: 9780241574720
• ISBN: 978-0-241-57472-0
• No. of pages: 208
• Dimensions: 129 mm x 198 mm x 15 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Fiction > Narrative literature > Main work before 1945; Dance, France, FICTION / Classics, Classic fiction (pre c 1945), Fiction in translation, FICTION / Feminist, FICTION / World Literature / France / 20th Century, Classic fiction: general and literary, FICTION / Performing Arts / Dance, Theater & Musicals, c 1871 to c 1914 (Belle Époque period), Classic fiction: literary and general