Books

A Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren

– A Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren. Compiled and annotated by Sylvie le Bon de Beauvoir. New York: The New Press, 1998.
From the publisher: In 1947, Simone de Beauvoir met Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Nelson Algren in Chicago, and it was love at first sight. A passionate affair ensued, spanning twenty years and four continents in an era when a transatlantic flight took… More

All Men are Mortal

– All Men are Mortal. Translated by Leonard M. Friedman. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1992. English translation of Tous les Hommes sont Mortels (Paris: Gallimard, 1946).
From the publisher: Probably de Beauvoir’s strangest and most compelling novel, this is the captivating story of a beautiful young actress who revives a downcast stranger at a French resort. He becomes thoroughly attached to her and confides a… More

Letters to Sartre

– Letters to Sartre. Translated and Edited by Quintin Hoare. London: Vintage, 1992. English translation of Lettres à Sartre (Paris: Gallimard, 1990).
From the publisher: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre formed one of the most famous literary couples of the twentieth century. Their relationship took on the quality of legend and served as a model of openness and honesty for countless men and women.… More

Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre

– Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre. Translated by Patrick O'Brian. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986. English translation of La cérémonie des adieux (Paris: Gallimard, 1981).
From the publisher: Simone de Beauvoir’s account of the last ten years of Jean-Paul Sartre’s life provides a focus for understanding one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century. But the book, consisting of both a year-by-year account of… More

When Things of the Spirit Come First

– When Things of the Spirit Come First. Translated by Patrick O'Brian. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982. English translation of Quand prime le spirituel (Paris: Gallimard, 1979).
From the publisher: This is a collection of semi-autobiographical tales written when the author was only 30, before World War II. Each tale concerns a young woman struggling with the effects of a Catholic upbringing and with the stifling social demands of the… More

The Coming of Age

– The Coming of Age. Translated by Patrick O'Brian. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996. English translation of La vieillesse (Paris: Gallimard, 1970).
From the publisher: What do the words elderly, old, and aged really mean? How are they used by society, and how in turn do they define the generation that we are taught to respect and love but instead castigate and avoid? Most importantly, how is our… More

The Woman Destroyed

– The Woman Destroyed. Translated by Patrick O'Brian. New York: Pantheon Books, 1969. English translation of La femme rompue (Paris: Gallimard, 1967).
In three “immensely intelligent stories about the decay of passion” (The Sunday Herald Times), Simone de Beauvoir draws us into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises.

A Very Easy Death

– A Very Easy Death. Translated by Patrick O'Brian. New York: Pantheon Books, 1965. English translation of Une mort très douce (Paris: Gallimard, 1964).
From the publisher: A Very Easy Death has long been considered one of Simone de Beauvoir’s masterpieces. The profoundly moving, day-by-day recounting of her mother’s death “shows the power of compassion when it is allied with acute intelligence”

The Ethics of Ambiguity

– The Ethics of Ambiguity. Translated by Bernard Frechtman. New York: Citadel Press, 1996. English translation of Pour une morale de l'ambiguïté (Paris: Gallimard, 1947). Beauvoir, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone de. Force of Circumstance, Vol. I: After the War, 1944-1952; Vol. 2: Hard Times, 1952-1962. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Paragon House, 1992. English translation of La force des choses (Paris: Gallimard, 1963).
In her 1947 book The Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir outlines an existentialist ethics.

In Defense of Djamila Boupacha

– "In Defense of Djamila Boupacha." Le Monde, 3 June, 1960. Appendix B in Djamila Boupacha: The Story of the Torture of a Young Algerian Girl which Shocked Liberal French Opinion; Introduction to Djamila Boupacha. Edited by Simone de Beauvoir and Gisèle Halimi. Translated by Peter Green. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962. English translations of Djamila Boupacha (Paris: Gallimard, 1962).
Originally a 1960 Le Monde article looking at the treatment of 23 year old Algerian Djamila Boupacha.

The Prime of Life: The Autobiography of Simone De Beauvoir

– The Prime of Life. Translated by Peter Green. New York: Lancer Books, 1966. English translation of La force de l'âge (Paris: Gallimard, 1960).
From the publisher: The author recalls her life in Paris in the formative years of 1929 to 1944, telling of her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre and of Parisian intellectual life of the 1930s and 1940s.

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter

– Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. Translated by James Kirkup. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1963. English translation of Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée (Paris: Gallimard, 1958).
From the publisher: A superb autobiography by one of the great literary figures of the twentieth century, Simone de Beauvoir’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter offers an intimate picture of growing up in a bourgeois French family, rebelling as an… More

The Long March

– The Long March. Translated by Austryn Wainhouse. New York: The World Publishing, 1958. English translation of La longue marche (Paris: Gallimard, 1957).
From the publisher: Beauvoir turns her attention eastward to China and paints a masterly picture of that nation in modern times. Honest and detailed, it comes from de Beauvoir’s personal journey through the country: “I have tried to evaluate all… More

Must We Burn Sade?

– Must We Burn Sade? Translated by Annette Michelson, The Marquis de Sade. New York: Grove Press, 1966. English translation of Faut-il brûler Sade? (Paris: Gallimard, 1955).
“Must We Burn Sade?”, a translation of “Faut-il bruler Sade?”, was originally published in ‘Les Temps Moderne’, December 1951 and January 1952.  Beauvoir considers her philosophy of feminism in relation to the… More

The Mandarins

– The Mandarins. Translated by Leonard M. Friedman. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1991. English translation of Les mandarins (Paris: Gallimard, 1954).
From the publisher: In her most famous novel, The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir takes an unflinching look at Parisian intellectual society at the end of World War II. In fictionally relating the stories of those around her — Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus,… More

America Day by Day

– America Day by Day. Translated by Carol Cosman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. English translation of L'Amérique au jour le jour (Paris: Gallimard, 1954).
From the publisher: Here is the ultimate American road book, one with a perspective unlike that of any other. In January 1947 Simone de Beauvoir landed at La Guardia airport and began a four-month journey that took her from one coast of the United States to… More

The Second Sex

– The Second Sex. Translated by H. M. Parshley. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. English translation of Le deuxième sexe (Paris: Gallimard, 1949).
Excerpt: For a long time I have hesitated to write a book on woman. The subject is irritating, especially to women; and it is not new. Enough ink has been spilled in quarrelling over feminism, and perhaps we should say no more about it. It is still talked… More

Who Shall Die?

– Who Shall Die? Translated by Claude Francis and Fernande Gontier. Florissant: River Press, 1983. English translation of Les bouches inutiles (Paris: Gallimard, 1945).
Beauvoir only wrote one play, Les Bouches Inutiles (Who Shall Die?) which was performed in 1945-the same year of the founding of Les Temps Modernes. Clearly enmeshed in the issues of World War II Europe, the dilemma of this play focuses on who is worth… More

The Blood of Others

– The Blood of Others. Translated by Roger Senhouse and Yvonne Moyse. New York: Pantheon Books, 1948. English translation of Le sang des autres (Paris: Gallimard, 1945).
Beauvoir examines the lives of different characters in pre-war Paris.

Pyrrhus and Cinéas

– Pyrrhus et Cinéas. Paris: Gallimard, 1944.
From the publisher: Pyrrhus and Cineas is Simone de Beauvoir’s first philosophical essay. It was published in 1944, and in it, she makes a philosophical inquiry into the human situation by way of analogy from the story of when Pyrrhus was asked by his… More

She Came to Stay

– She Came to Stay. Translated by Roger Senhouse and Yvonne Moyse. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.,1954. English translation of L'Invitée (Paris: Gallimard, 1943).
From the publisher: Set in Paris on the eve of World War II and sizzling with love, anger, and revenge, She Came to Stay explores the changes wrought in the soul of a woman and a city soon to fall. Although Françoise considers her relationship with Pierre an… More