Rage and Fire: A Life of Louise Colet : Pioneer Feminist, Literary Star, Flaubert's Muse.

New York, NY Simon & Schuster, 1994. Hardcover First Edition; First Printing indicated. First Edition; First Printing indicated. Near Fine in Fine DJ: Book shows only minute indications of use; binding square and secure; text clean. DJ price unclipped; mylar-protected. Virtually 'As New'. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. 432pp. Twelve-page section of photographic plates. Hardback with DJ. Feminist journalist, novelist, poet and flamboyant populist, the impetuous, exuberant Louise Colet (1810-1876) is best known as Gustave Flaubert's great love and a midwife of Madame Bovary. In this captivating biography, noted journalist and novelist Gray limns Colet as sort of "a 19th-century Erica Jong who recklessly splashed her life and loves across her poetry and prose." Confidante of Victor Hugo, lover of debauched poet Alfred de Musset, Colet sparred politically with George Sand and ran a salon frequented by Baudelaire and Alexandre Dumas. She was an ardent supporter of the Paris Commune of 1871 and a fierce critic of the Catholic Church, which she accused of bigotry and hypocrisy. Yet in her later years Colet became what Gray calls "a militant born-again moralist" who railed at the materialism and loose morals of the Second Empire. Gray delineates the many facets of a hot-tempered, ambitious extrovert, a self-supporting single mother who refused to compromise her independence by living with a man. This reading will heat you up on a cold day. Ms. Gray is a beautifully expressive writer; she will not disappoint you.