Most Popular Books by Francine Du Plessix Gray

In "October Blood," the ever-fashionable Francine du Plessix Gray turns her novelistic attention to the most fashionable of current topics, the mother-and-daughter pair.

A “spellbinding” and “deeply intelligent” historical novel about Marie Antoinette on the eve of the French Revolution (The Washington Post ) Through the untold love story between Marie Antoinette and Swedish aristocrat Axel von Fersen, acclaimed author Francine du Plessix Gray weaves history with romance in a captivating novel that also offers a fresh vision of the French Revolution. Paris, 1774. The dashing nobleman meets nineteen-year-old Marie Antoinette at a masquerade ball. As their relationship deepens at Versailles, Fersen discovers the court’s secrets, even the startling erotic details of Marie Antoinette’s marriage. But this intimacy is disrupted when he leaves to join the American Revolution. When he returns in 1783, he finds France on the brink of disintegration. After the Revolution of 1789, the royal family is moved to the Tuileries and suffers increasingly harsh captivity. After a failed attempt to liberate them, Fersen goes home to Sweden where he soon meets his own tragic end: his fate is symbolic of the violent pace with which of the eighteenth century’s events transformed European culture.

Tatiana du Plessix, the wife of a French diplomat, was a beautiful, sophisticated "white Russian" who had been the muse of the famous Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. Alexander Liberman, the ambitious son of a prominent Russian Jew, was a gifted magazine editor and aspiring artist. As part of the progressive artistic Russian émigré community living in Paris in the 1930s, the two were destined to meet. They began a passionate affair, and the year after Paris was occupied in World War II they fled to New York with Tatiana''s young daughter, Francine. There they determinedly rose to the top of high society, holding court to a Who''s Who list of the midcentury''s intellectuals and entertainers. Flamboyant and outrageous, bold and brilliant, they were irresistible to friends like Marlene Dietrich, Salvador Dalí, and the publishing tycoon Condé Nast. But to those who knew them well they were also highly neurotic, narcissistic, and glacially self-promoting, prone to cut out of their lives, with surgical precision, close friends who were no longer of use to them. Tatiana became an icon of New York fashion, and the hats she designed for Saks Fifth Avenue were de rigueur for stylish women everywhere. Alexander Liberman, who devotedly raised Francine as his own child from the time she was nine, eventually came to preside over the entire Condé Nast empire. The glamorous life they shared was both creative and destructive and was marked by an exceptional bond forged out of their highly charged love and raging self-centeredness. Their obsessive adulation of success and elegance was elevated to a kind of worship, and the high drama that characterized their lives followed them to their deaths. Tatiana, increasingly consumed with nostalgia for a long-lost Russia, spent her last years addicted to painkillers. Shortly after her death, Alexander, then age eighty, shocked all who knew him by marrying her nurse. Them: A Portrait of Parents is a beautifully written homage to the extraordinary lives of two fascinating, irrepressible people who were larger than life emblems of a bygone age. Written with honesty and grace by the person who knew them best, this generational saga is a survivor''s story. Tatiana and Alexander survived the Russian Revolution, the fall of France, and New York''s factory of fame. Their daughter, Francine, survived them.

This groundbreaking account offers a remarkable and unparalleled portrait of the Marquis de Sade and the two women closest to him who endured his peculiar genius: his adoring wife and his powerful mother-in-law. of photos.

Discusses conditions in the Soviet Union affecting women and presents their viewpoints on equality.

Follows the life, loves, and desperations of Stephanie, from her childhood in France through her schooling, affairs, and marriage in the United States and an unconventional relationship with a younger man, to her confrontation with death

The novel begins and ends in Nantucket, but roams forty years of American culture from the 1940''s to the 1980''s through the lives of three friends whose paths diverge and converge. Edmund, Claire, and Sophie, friends--and sometimes lovers--for thirty years, travel to the Soviet Union, hoping to plan for the last third of their lives and to resolve the struggles and confusions of the previous three decades.

Madame de Stael was born into a world of political and intellectual prominence, as the daughter of Louis XVI''s Minister of Finances, Jacques Necker. Later she married Sweden''s ambassador to the French court and, for more than 20 years, held the limelight as philosopher, political figure and prolific writer. She was, however, more than just a mind. Despite a plain appearance, she was notoriously seductive and enjoyed whirlwind affairs with some of the leading intellectuals of her time - she was a true force of nature.

Book based on the author''s New Yorker article, on a variety of subjects including culture, history, economy, and politics in Hawaiʻi.

In this ground-breaking biography of a heroic feminist and literary figure, the author of Lovers and Tyrants and Adam & Eve and the City vividly resurrencts one of the most fascinating women of the 19th century. Line art.

The true story of some very unique parents, this book is also the story of their daughter. Francine leads us from Russia to France to the United States and through a mythical, inimitable era in history. Her story is shaped by her parents and her mother''s subsequent lovers--all fashion-industry insiders, artists, and bohemians. There''s truth, joy, pleasure, and knowledge in these memories, which also span some of the most important moments of the 20th century. Ésta es la historia real de unos padres muy singulares, pero también la historia de su hija, la estupenda narradora de unas páginas fascinantes. Al mismo tiempo que, con rigor e inteligencia, nos lleva de la mano por las vidas de su familia --de Rusia y Francia a Estados Unidos--, Francine retrata a la perfección una época mítica e irrepetible. Sus padres son tan exitosos (una diseñadora de sombreros y un director de revistas de moda) como, en ocasiones, egocéntricos; tan seductores como insufribles; pero ella siempre sabe extraer una lección tanto del carácter ajeno como de la vida que le ha tocado vivir: entre el exilio y el glamour, entre el lujo y las pérdidas... Tatiana Yákovleva, la madre de la autora, se convirtió en la musa del famoso poeta Vladímir Maiakovski cuando éste se enamoró de ella. Al poco, renunció a este romance y se casó con un vizconde francés: Bertrand du Plessix, el padre de Francine. Tras su muerte --el avión que pilotaba fue abatido por los nazis--, Tatiana comenzó a vivir con Alexander Liberman, un ambicioso artista hijo de un prominente judío ruso. Un año después de la ocupación de París en la Segunda Guerra Mundial, huyeron a Nueva York con la joven Francine. Allí, los sombreros de Tatiana llegarían a ser también un icono y Alexander, después de dirigir primero Vogue, estaría al frente de todo el imperio de revistas Condé Nast. Extravagantes, brillantes y audaces, los dos eran irresistibles para los amigos que frecuentaban sus fiestas, como su íntima Marlene Dietrich o diseñadores de la talla de Christian Dior e Yves Saint-Laurent. En estas memorias tan novelescas hay mucha verdad, encanto, placer y conocimiento, además de una mirada única sobre algunos de los momentos más relevantes del siglo xx.

Intelligence exceptionnelle pour les uns, esprit intransigeant pour les autres, Simone Weil compte parmi les plus importants philosophes du XXe siècle. Sensible au christianisme tout en étant respectueuse de ses racines juives, intellectuelle convaincue de la valeur rédemptrice du travail manuel, ascète capable d''éprouver de grandes émotions esthétiques, militante engagée, Simone Weil ne faisait rien comme tout le monde. Ses écrits, toujours profondément originaux, ont traité de politique autant que de spiritualité, d''histoire et d''éthique autant que de poétique et de psychologie. Mettant tour à tour en lumière l''élève choyée, la militante syndicale, l''enseignante passionnée, la mystique et la philosophe, Francine du Plessix Gray arrive à saisir la complexité d''un être fascinant. Avec finesse, elle évoque le parcours singulier et douloureux de cette figure de proue de la pensée contemporaine et met en valeur l''aspect visionnaire de son œuvre. Simone Weil, entre la rigueur et la grâce.

"Marques de Sade esta ahora tan suspendido en el limbo entre la leyenda y el mito, que el mundo casi ha olvidado que alguna vez fue un hombre, un noble, un soldado, un marido, un padre y, por supuesto, tambien un pornografo genial en un tiempo y en un lugar reales, la Francia prerrevolucionaria.Francine du Plessix Gray ha tenido una idea brillante al recrear no tanto al ''monstruo'' que se convertiria -sombrio destino- en un adjetivo, sino al hombre real, que paso gran parte de su vida en prision gracias a sus c trasgresiones sexuales y a un monstruo de carne v hueso, su suegra, que podria haber sido la Figura central de Relaciones peligrosas si el autor de la novela lo hubiera atrevido a incluirla.Este es un estudio elegante y esclarecedor acerca de una poderosa imaginacion sexual atrapada en un mero cuerpo, un prisionero de la Bastilla de la que solo una revolucion pudo liberarlo... a el y a nosotros, sus futuros lectores."

Assorted drafts of mss., personal and professional correspondence (1947-1993), photocopies of correspondence by feminist Louise Colet, various published articles, essays, short non-fiction pieces, research materials, journals (1948-1979), and photographs.