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

Our Lady of the Flowers

  • 3.17 ·
  • 6 Ratings
  • 67 Want to read
  • 2 Currently reading
  • 7 Have read

My Reading Lists:

Create a new list

Check-In

×Close
Add an optional check-in date. Check-in dates are used to track yearly reading goals.
Today

  • 3.17 ·
  • 6 Ratings
  • 67 Want to read
  • 2 Currently reading
  • 7 Have read

Buy this book

Last edited by AgentSapphire
November 16, 2022 | History
An edition of Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs (1948)

Our Lady of the Flowers

  • 3.17 ·
  • 6 Ratings
  • 67 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
Grove Press
Language
English
Pages
307

Buy this book

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.
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

Add another edition?

Book Details


Published in

New York, N.Y

Edition Notes

Translation of: Notre-Dame des Fleurs.

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
843/.912
Library of Congress
PQ2613.E53 N613 1991, PQ2613.E53N613 1991

The Physical Object

Pagination
307 p. ;
Number of pages
307

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL2372420M
Internet Archive
ourladyofflowers0000gene_k3i9
ISBN 10
0802130135
LCCN
87000414
OCLC/WorldCat
15367009
Library Thing
21491
Goodreads
535539

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."

Community Reviews (0)

Feedback?
No community reviews have been submitted for this work.

History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON
November 16, 2022 Edited by AgentSapphire //covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/13004979-S.jpg
November 16, 2022 Edited by AgentSapphire Update covers
November 16, 2022 Edited by AgentSapphire merge authors
November 16, 2022 Edited by AgentSapphire Merge works
December 9, 2009 Created by WorkBot add works page