Claudine at School
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First published in 1900, Claudine at School introduces one of Colette’s most vivid creations: Claudine, a sharp-eyed, irreverent adolescent growing up in a provincial French village. Told in Claudine’s own voice, the novel follows her schooldays, her friendships and rivalries, and the tangled adult intrigues she observes with a mixture of curiosity, jealousy and mischievous delight. Her account of the school’s teachers and pupils punctures the respectable surface of provincial life, revealing a world shaped by desire, vanity and hypocrisy.
The first of the Claudine novels, the book established the bold, sensuous voice that would become central to Colette’s writing, though it was initially published under her husband Willy’s name. Its frank treatment of female adolescence and same-sex attraction was daring for its time, while Claudine’s lively, sometimes unreliable narration gives the novel its lasting freshness. Beneath the comedy lies a keen portrait of a young woman discovering her own appetites and learning to look sceptically at the conventions around her.
From the book
“Those French compositions, how I loathe them! Such stupid and disgusting subjects…”
— Colette, Claudine at School
On Claudine at School
“She is modern, she is a hooligan, she is ancient, and she has emerged from eternity.”
— Rachilde, on Claudine at School