New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927. dj. Hardcover first edition - First American publication of this novel by this avant-garde writer, who later found more success as a playwright - "a love story behind which can be glimpsed the rivalry between two statesmen, a nationalist and an internationalist. Thus, what was to become the central theme of GiraudouxÕs plays was made clear: a pair of opposites, whatever they might be" (Brittanica) Author Mavis Gallant commented that he "was praised, as the author of a kind of dragonfly prose that is absolutely unlike any other, by everyone he might have cared about, from Gide to Proust, Colette to Sartre. He was also damned, by critics whose names mean nothing today. Americans who do not remember much about Giraudoux certainly know some of his plays: 'Tiger at the Gates,' and the 'The Madwoman of Chaillot'." Gallant (writing in the NY Times in 1972) went on to ask " ' Who reads Giraudoux now?' would have been a good question for the fifties and sixties. Now, there are faint signs of a revival. ÒTiger at the GatesÓ played to full houses, largely of young people, last season, and when ÒLa Menteuse,Ó his posthumous novel, was published in 1969 the reviews were ecstatic. Also, the revolutionary left, if you please, is now patting his head and saying he was with them all along." Maybe it is time for another revival - or rediscovery. Translated from the French by J. F. Scanlon. Borzoi endpapers, art deco dust jacket art. 256 pp.