Grand Meaulnes

The novel that defined French romanticism. When the restless Augustin Meaulnes abandons his studies at a provincial boarding school to wander the French countryside, he discovers a hidden estate where a girl in a white dress plays the piano in a moonlit garden. He meets Yvonne de Galais, and for one perfect night, he lives in a world of enchantment. Then he loses the address, and spends years searching for both the girl and the meaning she gave to his life. Against the backdrop of rural France in the years before the Great War, this is a story of obsession, friendship, and the unbearable weight of ideal love. François Seurel, Augustin's loyal friend, narrates this tale of a young man who cannot forget and cannot move forward, haunted by a memory that may have been a dream. It is a novel about the pain of growing up and the courage required to choose between fantasy and reality.