The Miscreant — Jean Cocteau

with drawings by Cocteau. Forestier, the central character, is a parasite and dilettante who responds readily to beauty in both sexes. In Paris, he indulges in a life of dissipation with students and their mistresses, and falls in love with Germaine, a chorus girl kept by a rich banker. The affair, doomed from the start, forces him to come to terms not so much with society as with himself. A cleverly told story...a brilliant picture of adolescent loneliness." - TLS. "Extremely witty...with its Gothic imagery, its sense of the macabre and its nostalgia it makes enchanting reading...beautifully translated." - BBC.