A late-19th-century French novel of decadence and social drift, centred on a woman whose refusal—or inability—to align with conventional expectations becomes both her defining trait and her undoing.

Peyrebrune traces her movements through a series of encounters that expose the constraints placed on female autonomy, desire, and reputation, without ever fully stabilising her as either victim or transgressor.

Georges de Peyrebrune—the pen name of Mathilde-Marie Georgina Élisabeth de Peyrebrune—was a prolific French writer associated with naturalist and realist circles, though her work often sits slightly outside them. Writing at a time when women’s authorship was both visible and constrained, she frequently returned to questions of female independence, social judgment, and the limits imposed on women’s lives. Much of her work fell out of circulation in the 20th century and has only recently been recovered through small press reissues like Snuggly.

Snuggly Books paperback edition, 2021, translated and introduced by Brian Stableford. Clean copy with minor cover wear.