Colette: A Taste for Life

Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette was born in 1873 in a small village in Burgundy.

She went to Paris at the age of twenty, where she unwillingly, but obediently, started her career as a writer at the instigation of her first husband. Her first books shocked the French bourgeoisie and, indeed, most of the critics; inspired thousands of adolescent boys and girls to write to her, identifying their thoughts and feelings with those of her characters; started a cult; and at the same time gained for her amongst other literary honours, the nomination of Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur on the same day as Marcel Proust.

“Collette’s essence was her sensuous love of the earth and its mysteries. To explain was to destroy. This and other captivating aspects of Colette’s wonderful personality Yvonne Mitchell has caught with devotion and intelligence.” — Margaret Manning, Philadelphia Inquirer