The Image of Her

One woman strives for perfection - it''s an old story. This is Simone de Beauvoir''s gripping version. Laurence lives what appears to be an ideal existence. Her life features all the trappings of 1960s Parisian bourgeoisie: money, a handsome husband, two daughters and a lover. She also has a successful career as an advertising copywriter, though her mind unbidden writes copy whilst she''s at home, and dreams of domesticity in the office. But Laurence is a woman whose happiness was relegated long ago by the expectation of perfection. Relentlessly torn by the competing needs of her family, it is only when her 10-year-old daughter, Catherine, starts to vocalise her despair about the unfairness of the world that Laurence resists. TRANSLATED BY LAUREN ELKIN

About the author

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris in 1908. In 1929 she became the youngest person ever to obtain the agrégation in philosophy at the Sorbonne, placing second to Jean-Paul Sartre. She taught at the lycées at Marseille and Rouen from 1931-1937, and in Paris from 1938-1943. After the war, she emerged as one of the leaders of the existentialist movement, working with Sartre on Les Temps Mordernes. The author of several books including The Mandarins (1957) which was awarded the Prix Goncourt, de Beauvoir was one of the most influential thinkers of her generation. She died in 1986.Lauren Elkin is the author of several books, including Flâneuse: Women Walk the City, a Radio 4 Book of the Week, a New York Times Notable Book of 2017, and a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel award for the art of the essay. Her essays on art, literature, and culture have appeared in the London Review of Books, the New York Times, Granta, Harper's, Le Monde, Les Inrockuptibles, and Frieze, among others. She is also an award-winning translator, most recently of Simone de Beauvoir's previously unpublished novel The Inseparables. After twenty years in Paris, she now lives in London.

Product details

• Authors: Simone de Beauvoir, Simone De Beauvoir
• Assisted by: Lauren Elkin (Translation), Elkin Lauren (Translation)
• Publisher: Vintage UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.05.2025
• EAN: 9781784879907
• ISBN: 978-1-78487-990-7
• No. of pages: 208
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 204 mm x 25 mm
• Series: VINTAGE CLASSICS
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), FICTION / Family Life / General, France, FICTION / Classics, Classic fiction (pre c 1945), Fiction in translation, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Feminism & Feminist Theory, Family life fiction, Narrative theme: Social issues, Feminism & feminist theory, Feminism and feminist theory, c 1960 to c 1969, FICTION / Feminist, Classic fiction: general and literary