The Miscreant

Jean Cocteau

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY DOROTHY WILLIAMS, ILLUSTRATED WITH DRAWINGS BY COCTEAU

First British Commonwealth edition (3rd impression), 1975

Other than having a light crease across the front of the dust jacket, this book is in remarkably good condition. The binding is tight and the pages are clean, giving it the appearance of a newly published edition.

Jacques Forestier, the central character in this classic novel, is a parasite and dilettante who responds readily to beauty in both sexes. Leaving his provincial family he comes to Paris to study for his degree. There he indulges in a life of dissipation with a group of students and their mistresses and falls in love with Germaine, a chorus girl kept by a rich banker. The affair, doomed from the start, forces Jacques to come to terms not so much with society as he finds it, as with himself.

In this study of loneliness and youthful disenchantment Jean Cocteau displays the savage irony and epigrammatic wit that consistently distinguish his brilliant, highly individual prose style. Here too is a sparkling evocation of the Parisian scene of the twenties.

Cocteau, born 1889, is regarded as one of France's greatest men of arts and letters. A multi-faceted talent, he achieved distinction as a poet, playwright and critic, as well as an artist, illustrator, composer, actor and internationally acclaimed film-maker, whose adult fairytale, La Belle et la Bête, has achieved classic status. His best-known novels include The Impostor and Les Enfants Terribles. He was also the author of Opium, a celebrated account of his drug addiction and cure. A recipient of the Légion d'honneur, Jean Cocteau died in 1963.