Count D'Orgel's Ball Paperback by Raymond Radiguet; Foreword by Jean Cocteau; Translated by Annapaola Cancogni

Product Details

• Publisher: NYRB Classics (2005-03-31)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 176 pages
• ISBN-13: 9781590171387
• Item Weight: 181.44 grams
• Dimensions: 8.0 x 5.0 x 0.4 cm

Count d'Orgel is handsome, charming, and carefree, a model of cool aristocratic aplomb. His wife, the Countess, is beautiful and pure and loves her husband more than anything in the world. But from the moment the d'Orgels meet and befriend the clever young François de Séryeuse backstage at the circus, all three of these supremely civilized and witty people are caught up in an ever more intricate and seductive dance of deception and self-deception. At Count d'Orgel's masquerade ball, the real disguises are those of the human heart.

Completed just before Raymond Radiguet's death at the age of twenty, Count d'Orgel's Ball is a love story that is as disturbing as it is delicious.

About the Author

Raymond Radiguet (1903–1923) was the eldest of seven children born to a poor cartoonist. He left school at fifteen and was soon contributing articles to newspapers and journals in Paris, where he became the protégé and lover of Jean Cocteau. Radiguet published poems, criticism, and a play, The Pelican, as well as a highly successful novel, The Devil in the Flesh, while leading a wild and increasingly self-destructive life. He died of typhoid, contracted from eating oysters. The manuscript of his second novel, Count d’Orgel’s Ball, was prepared for posthumous publication by Cocteau.