Gigi (Annotated)

Colette's Gigi is a finely poised novella of Belle Époque Paris, where manners, money, and erotic commerce are rendered with crystalline irony. Its young heroine is being educated by her grandmother and great-aunt for the demi-monde, yet her candor unsettles the elegant machinery of arranged pleasure. Written in Colette's supple, exact prose, the book belongs to the French tradition of social come...