02700cam a2200409 i 4500 354788198 TxGeo 20180820120000.0 171213s2018||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2017038855 9780307961785 hbk. 0307961788 hbk. (OCoLC)999443977 TxGeo rda Weber, Caroline, 1969- Proust's duchess : how three celebrated women captured the imagination of fin de siècle Paris / Caroline Weber. First edition. New York, NY : Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. x, 715 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), color map ; 25 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier "This is a Borzoi Book.". Includes bibliographical references. "A ... look at the glittering world of turn-of-the-century Paris through the first in-depth study of the three women Proust used to create his supreme fictional character, the Duchesse de Guermantes. Geneviève Halévy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse de Adhéaume de Chevigné; and Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, the Comtesse Greffuhle--these were the three superstars of fin-de-siècle Parisian high society who, as Caroline Weber says, 'transformed themselves, and were transformed by those around them, into living legends: paragons of elegance, nobility, and style.' All well but unhappily married, these women sought freedom and fulfillment by reinventing themselves, between the 1870s and 1890s, as icons. At their fabled salons, they inspired the creativity of several generations of writers, visual artists, composers, designers, and journalists ... Proust, as a twenty-year-old law student in 1892, would worship them from afar, and later meet them and create his celebrated composite character for The Remembrance of Things Past"-- Provided by publisher. 20180907. Proust, Marcel 1871-1922 Sources. Proust, Marcel 1871-1922 Contemporaries. Proust, Marcel 1871-1922 À la recherche du temps perdu. Straus, Geneviève 1849-1926. Chevigné, Laure de 1859-1936. Greffulhe, Elisabeth comtesse 1860-1952. Women France Paris Biography. Aristocracy (Social class) France Paris Biography. Biographies. QS5