THE FOLIO SOCIETY

‘Monsieur Seurel stepped down from the platform where he had been giving us dictation, and Meaulnes walked towards him with something aggressive in his attitude. I recall thinking how fine my tall companion looked...’

The people of Sainte-Agathe are both drawn to and intrigued by their new arrival Augustin Meaulnes, not least the narrator, 15-year-old Francois Seurel. Residing as a boarder with Francois’s family, Augustin is quickly nicknamed le grand Meaulnes by his fellow school pupils. However, his life takes on a new purpose after he stumbles upon a mysterious country estate, where preparations for a wedding are taking place. There he sees and falls in love with the beautiful Yvonne de Galais, daughter of the house.

Events take an unforeseen turn and Meaulnes remains haunted by this country idyll; hopelessly obsessed with finding it and Yvonne again. Alain-Fournier’s bittersweet novel is an exquisite tale of adolescent ardour. He conjures up a golden landscape, full of beauty and mystery, while his impulsive, reckless hero embodies the romantic ideal, forever in search of the unobtainable.

Chosen by Nick Hornby

‘I read it for the first time when I was seventeen and loved every page. I find its depiction of a golden time and place just as poignant now as I did then’

A popular British writer best known for his novels about the obsessions and role of masculinity in the modern world, Nick Hornby has won the E. M. Forster award and the W.H. Smith Literary Award. Several of his novels have been made into films, including High Fidelity, About a Boy and Fever Pitch.

Poignantly, Le Grand Meaulnes was published just one year before Fournier’s tragic death in the First World War at the age of 27.

Born in 1886 in a small, isolated town in central France, Alain-Fournier was attached, physically and emotionally, to the landscapes of his childhood. He moved to Paris to prepare for university; it was here in 1905 that he first saw Yvonne de Quievrecourt, the inspiration for the novel’s heroine. Hauntingly romantic, and ultimately uplifting, Le Grand Meaulnes is one of the great works of French literature.