8 h 38 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 8 h 38 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the love that breaks your boredom also unsettles every careful arrangement in your life?
Thérèse Martin-Bellème has rank, a Paris salon and a husband who gives his energy to politics. Her lover, Robert Le Ménil, offers habit rather than happiness. Then she meets Jacques Dechartre, a shy painter and sculptor, and the polished life she knows begins to lose its hold.
In Anatole France’s The Red Lily, drawing rooms, dinner tables and a journey to Florence frame a close study of passion. As Thérèse seeks a love that feels real, jealousy presses against her hopes. Around her, poets, writers and politicians trade opinions, while quiet conversations expose the distance between polite manners and private longing.
What you’ll discover
- A woman beyond appearances Enter Thérèse’s thoughts as she weighs familiar comforts against the desire for something real.
- Love shadowed by jealousy Explore the uneasy line between wanting another person and wanting to possess them.
- Florence and growing closeness Follow Thérèse and Dechartre into a city where art and affection draw them together.
- The talk of Paris Meet poets and sceptics whose wit brings society’s money, manners and politics into focus.
- Irony with real tenderness Find a calm, attentive portrait of love that leaves room for painful questions.
Who will love it
This is for readers who love Paris salons, witty conversation and love stories told with a clear eye. It suits anyone drawn to Italian art, to walks through Florence, and to what a lover can forgive of the past.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A bored countess waits for something to happen
- Her father taught her to want everything
- A foxhunt ends three years of love
- Two odd travelers share her railway carriage
- Fiesole offers bells, poets and gentle gossip
- Dechartre teaches her to see, and to love
- One dropped letter wounds the new lover
- The old lover returns and demands the truth
- Paris gives the lovers a secret, shining world
- Jealousy of the past is the real subject
Who’s who
- Therese Martin-BellemeA rich, clear-minded Parisian countess who is bored by her marriage and her affair, and who longs for a love that is real.
- Jacques DechartreA gifted, restless sculptor who loves beauty and thought, and who wants to possess Therese completely.
- Robert Le MenilTherese's lover of three years, a simple, honest, horse-loving gentleman who trusts her and cannot imagine losing her.
- MontessuyTherese's father, a self-made financier who loves pleasure, art and winning, and who shaped his daughter's will.
- Count Martin-BellemeTherese's husband, a cautious, ambitious politician who rises toward a ministry and expects her to help him.
- Vivian BellAn English poet in Fiesole who collects bells, speaks in chirps and welcomes Therese to Italy.
- ChouletteA vagabond poet and self-appointed saint who preaches poverty, hates armies and both amuses and irritates his companions.
- Madame MarmetA gentle academician's widow and Therese's chaperone, who treasures the memory of her husband and his Etruscan studies.
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- Large print hardcover
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The Red Lily — Complete
by Anatole France · 1894
Bored in Paris, Therese flees to Florence, where a sculptor's love wakes her and her past follows her home.
Medium level5–10 hours to readItaliano
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In short
What does a woman do when she has beauty, money, a lover and a salon full of clever guests, and still feels nothing? She needs love.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A bored countess waits for something to happen
Therese Martin-Belleme stands in her tall drawing room and studies herself in a mirror. Old tapestries hang around her, and pale flowers rise from Chinese vases. Everything in the room seems asleep, even the painted goddess on the ceiling.
Visitors arrive one after another, and France lets each one speak. The scholar Schmoll complains that nobody honors him enough, and Paul Vence praises her beautiful things. Therese listens with polite amusement. When Vence offers to bring his friend, the sculptor Dechartre, she agrees without interest.
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- 15-minute summary
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Details
- First published
- 1894
- Language
- Italiano
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
France, Anatole. The Red Lily — Complete. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-red-lily-complete.
France, A. (2026). The red lily — Complete. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-red-lily-complete (Original work published 1894)
France, Anatole. The Red Lily — Complete. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-red-lily-complete.
@book{france2026red,
author = {France, Anatole},
title = {The Red Lily — Complete},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-red-lily-complete},
note = {First published 1894}
}
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What is The Red Lily about?
It tells of Therese Martin-Belleme, a Parisian countess who leaves her lover Robert Le Menil for the sculptor Jacques Dechartre in Florence. Back in Paris, jealousy of her past continues to threaten the new love.
What does the red lily mean in the novel?
The red lily is the emblem of Florence. Therese wears a ruby lily jewel that Dechartre designed, and it becomes a sign of their love and of the city where it began.
Who is Choulette in The Red Lily?
Choulette is a wandering poet, half beggar and half saint, who travels to Italy with Therese. He preaches poverty and peace, attacks armies and the rich, and brings humor and odd wisdom to the story.
The author
Anatole France
1844–1924 · French novelist
Anatole France (1844–1924) was a French novelist, poet and essayist. He was born in Paris and died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire, France. His novels include The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881), Thaïs (1890), The Red Lily (1894), Penguin Island (1908) and The Revolt of the Angels (1914).
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