“Raymond Radiguet was the very young lover of Jean Cocteau. He wrote the book while still just a teenager and died of typhoid at just 20. This was his only published novel, which Cocteau forced him to write, slightly disturbing framing given the content of the book which is about a 16-year-old boy who has an affair with an older married woman, it stands as an original work of incredible literary merit.” - Gemma Janes

This is the first English translation, published by Calder and Boyars in 1968. Its partially faded cover shows that a previous reader left it sitting in the sun under a stack of other summer reads.