Le Grand Meaulnes is the only novel by French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 author Alain-Fournier

Alain-Fournier

Alain-Fournier was the pseudonym of Henri Alban-Fournier , a French author and soldier. He was the author of a single novel, Le Grand Meaulnes , which has been twice filmed and is considered a classic of French literature.-Biography:Alain-Fournier was born in La Chapelle-d'Angillon, in the Cher...

. Fifteen-year-old François Seurel narrates the story of his relationship with seventeen-year-old Augustin Meaulnes as Meaulnes searches for his lost love. Impulsive, reckless and heroic, Meaulnes embodies the romantic

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 ideal, the search for the unobtainable, and the mysterious world between childhood and adulthood. It is considered one of the great works of French literature

French literature

French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...

.

Plot summary

François the narrator of the book is the son of M.

Monsieur

' is an honorific title that used to refer to or address the eldest living brother of the king in the French royal court. It is also a customary French title of respect and term of address for a French-speaking man, corresponding to such English titles as Mr...

 Seurel who is the director of the school in a small village in the Sologne

Sologne

Sologne , a region of north-central France extending over portions of the départements of Loiret, Loir-et-Cher and Cher...

, a countryside of lakes and sandy forests. After arriving in class, Augustin Meaulnes, who has led a distressed life, soon disappears. He returns from an escapade he had which was an incredible and magical costume party where he met the girl of his dreams, Yvonne de Galais.

Translations

Various English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 translations are available. While there have been different translations of the title, such as The Lost Domain and The Wanderer, modern translations usually do not translate the title.

Adaptations

Le Grand Meaulnes was featured on the BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 programme Book at Bedtime

Book at Bedtime

Book at Bedtime is a long-running radio programme on BBC Radio 4, broadcast each weekday evening at 10.45–11.00 pm.Book at Bedtime offers fiction including modern classics, new works by leading writers and literature from around the world. Books are usually abridged and serialised each evening for...

, recorded in 1980 and repeated in 1999. A two-part serialisation by Jennifer Howarth was broadcast as the Classic Serial

Classic Serial

The Classic Serial is a strand on BBC Radio 4 in which classics of English literature are adapted into series of one-hour dramas. It is broadcast twice weekly on BBC Radio 4, first from 3:00-4:00pm on Sunday, then repeated on 9:00-10:00pm the next Saturday....

 in August 2005.

The book was made into a film of the same name by Jean-Gabriel Albicocco

Jean-Gabriel Albicocco

Jean-Gabriel Albicocco was a French film director.In 1960 he married French actress and singer Marie Laforêt...

 in 1967 (shown in the United States under the title The Wanderer). Another film adaptation (Le Grand Meaulnes

Le Grand Meaulnes (film)

Le Grand Meaulnes is a 2006 film directed by Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe, based on the classic novel of the same name. The film premiered on October 4, 2006 in France.-Synopsis:The film begins on a night of November 1910...

) was released in November 2006, starring Jean-Baptiste Maunier

Jean-Baptiste Maunier

Jean-Baptiste Maunier , nicknamed JB or Jean-Bapt, is a French actor and singer famous for his role in the 2004 French film, Les Choristes.- Early life :...

.

Le Grand Meaulnes is the 4th symphony composed by Michel Bosc

Michel Bosc

Michel Bosc is a classical French composer born in Paris in 1963. With various influences, his music has tackled registers as diverse as symphonic, chamber of vocal music, sacred music, theatre music and orchestrations....

.

Richard Anthony

Richard Anthony (French singer)

Richard Anthony is a French singer, born 13 January 1938 in Cairo, Egypt, as Ricardo Btesh.-Biography:Richard's father was an industrialist, and his mother was the daughter of an English diplomat...

 made the novel into a pop song (French lyrics).

See also

• Le Mondes 100 Books of the Century
  Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
  The 100 Books of the Century is a grading of the books considered as the hundred best of the 20th century, drawn up in the spring of 1999 through a poll conducted by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde....
  
  

External links

Le Grand Meaulnes, audio version - Latest French audio version