Available in an unabridged English translation for the first time in more than a century, Memoirs from Beyond the Grave is an epic autobiography of Chateaubriand, the aristocratic Frenchman who lived through the beginning of the French Revolution and who would become the founder of the Romantic movement in Europe.
Fran ois-Rene de Chateaubriand (1768-1848), a writer, historian,
and diplomat,is considered one of the France's first Romantic
authors.
Alex Andriesse is a writer and translator. He lives in Dublin,
Ireland, and westernMassachusetts.
Anka Muhlstein was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1996 for her
biography ofAstolphe de Custine, and has twice received the History
Prize of the French Academy.
"As fresh as ever. . . . [Memoirs from Beyond the Grave 1768-1800
and Memoirs from Beyond the Grave 1800-1815] speak as much to our
times as they did to the nineteenth century." —David Platzer, The
New Criterion
"Chateaubriand’s self-appointed calling was as court historian who
held his subject in contempt, ensuring that the truth would out
about the monsters who rule the world for a spell. His eloquence
won the regard even of his sworn enemy. . . .May he find comparable
honor in our time and our place." —Algis Valiunas, National
Review
"What distinguishes [Memoirs from Beyond the Grave]...is less its
historical overview of the turbulence that preceded Napoleon’s
rise to power than Chateaubriand’s examination of his own character
and feelings amid multiple setbacks. Indeed, it is the lyricism and
intimacy of his language, convincingly translated here by Alex
Andriesse, that made Chateaubriand a precursor of French
Romanticism." ——Alan Riding, The New York Times Book Review
“Alex Andriesse's fine unabridged translation—which deftly wrangles
Chateaubriand’s personal canon of Greek and Latin classics, Breton
proverbs, Jewish scripture, Catholic hymns
and medieval laid—is the first into English in more than
a century. What…does Chateaubriand have to offer the contemporary
reader? Beyond the sumptuous language and aphoristic compression,
it is his ability to engage with, and even surmount, contradiction
that proves most resonant. His elastic prose…leaps easily between
burnished romanticism and more classical forms…It makes for
immensely satisfying reading.” —Dustin Illingworth, TLS
"Alex Andriesse has done a wonderful job suggesting the range of
tone and feeling Chateaubriand offers, he shifts from the ecstatic
to the dry, from the descriptive to the cryptic...The echoes of
Chateaubriand in so much existentialist literature of the 20th
century suggest that for all his difficulty finding congenial
company among his contemporaries, in a longer perspective he
becomes a figure we can all be intimate with." —Tim Parks, London
Review of Books
"This memoir, ably translated by Andriesse with an introduction
from historian Anka Muhlstein, reveals to English-speaking readers
the famously aphoristic and flamboyant style that other French
writers, including Baudelaire and Proust, admired and sought to
emulate." —Publishers Weekly
“The best autobiography ever written. . . . The old viscount could
write one hell of a sentence. It’s an incredible book.” —Paul
Auster, The Book of Illusions
“Chateaubriand’s Memoirs. . . are his Arc de Triomphe, and may yet
prove more lasting than their equivalent in stone.” —Adam
Kirsch
“To read Chateaubriand is to witness the subjective and yet
comprehensive unfolding of a society’s change: of customs,
prospects, ethics, conventions. He stands (as in the famous
portrait by Girodet) on the farther shore.” —Alberto Manguel
"The Memoirs from Beyond the Grave [...] encapsulate and bring
to perfect mastery all the linguistic registers that their author
had by turns attempted: epic, tragic, elegiac, lyric, oratorical,
narrative, descriptive – like an evening rainbow over a Venetian
lagoon." –Marc Fumaroli
“A Romantic classic.” —BBC News, Paris
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