{"product_id":"prousts-duchess-caroline-weber-9780345803122","title":"Proust's Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-De-Siècle Paris","description":"\u003cb\u003ePULITZER PRIZE FINALIST - A brilliant look at turn-of-the-century Paris through the first in-depth study of the three women Proust used to create his supreme fictional character, the Duchesse de Guermantes. \"Weber has done a remarkable job of bringing to life...a world of culture, glamour and privilege.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGeneviève Halévy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse de Adhéaume de Chevigné; and Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, the Comtesse Greffulhe--these were the three superstars of fin-de-siècle Parisian high society who, as Caroline Weber says, \"transformed themselves, and were transformed by those around them, into living legends: paragons of elegance, nobility, and style.\" All well but unhappily married, these women sought freedom and fulfillment by reinventing themselves, between the 1870s and 1890s, as icons. At their fabled salons, they inspired the creativity of several generations of writers, visual artists, composers, designers, and journalists. Against a rich historical backdrop, Weber takes the reader into these women's daily lives of masked balls, hunts, dinners, court visits, nights at the opera or theater. But we see as well the loneliness, rigid social rules, and loveless, arranged marriages that constricted these women's lives. Proust, as a twenty-year-old law student in 1892, would worship them from afar, and later meet them and create his celebrated composite character for \u003ci\u003eThe Remembrance of Things Past.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Caroline Weber\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0345803124\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780345803122\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Vintage\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/26\/2019\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 752\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 2.05lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.10h x 6.00w x 1.60d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAward:\u003c\/b\u003e Pulitzer Prize - Finalist","brand":"Caroline Weber","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44048970055935,"sku":"9780345803122","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_4328fb1f-4438-4c67-a393-e1995e10dd06.jpg?v=1684998861","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/prousts-duchess-caroline-weber-9780345803122","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}