Women Lovers, or the Third Woman - Hardcover

"Women Lovers" has shown me a Natalie that I never knew, a fragile Natalie. This novel is an amazing revelation. Jean Chalon, author of "Portrait of a Seductress"" Barney s experimentation in "Women Lovers" with offbeat structural choices and narrative strategies, and its stylistic allegiances to decadent traditions, indicate how much of literary modernism s rich texture has been ironed out in the writing and rewriting of that literary history. Tirza T. Latimer, author of "Women Together/Women Apart"" Leaps energetically to life. . . . [This] autobiographical, sprightly 1926 novel of a Belle Epoque lesbian love triangle [is] appearing in English for the first time. Shelf Awareness" This book couldn t have been published in 1926; even now it s sometimes a bit shocking. Suzanne Rodriguez, author of Wild Heart" A first-ever translation that shines new light on Natalie Barney, the invincible Amazon, sexual rebel, and arch-seducer of women who in the 1920s aspired to make Paris the Sapphic Centre of the Western World. Chelsea Ray shows us another side to her: vulnerable, jealous, and volatile in love. Diana Souhami, author of Natalie and Romaine " Barney s experimentation in Women Lovers with offbeat structural choices and narrative strategies, and its stylistic allegiances to decadent traditions, indicate how much of literary modernism s rich texture has been ironed out in the writing and rewriting of that literary history. Tirza T. Latimer, author of Women Together/Women Apart" Women Lovers has shown me a Natalie that I never knew, a fragile Natalie. This novel is an amazing revelation. Jean Chalon, author of Portrait of a Seductress"

This long-lost novel recounts a passionate triangle of love and loss among three of the most daring women of belle epoque Paris. In this barely disguised roman a clef, the legendary American heiress, writer, and arts patron Natalie Clifford Barney becomes the character N., the dashing Italian baroness Mimi Franchetti is M., and the beautiful French courtesan Liane de Pougy is L. Barney writes of an erotic liaison that breaks all taboos but also reveals N.'s vulnerability as she unexpectedly becomes the devastated "third woman." The story ends with a powerful dialogue on the challenges of love. Never before published in English, and only recently published in French, this modernist, experimental work has been brought to light by Chelsea Ray's research. It reveals a more complex Natalie Barney and expands modernist literary representations of lesbian love. Ray's translation is augmented by her essay and notes highlighting themes of modernism and queer studies, as well as by Melanie Hawthorne's introduction.