Skip content
The Passion of Mademoiselle S. by Jean-Yves Berthault
  Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!

Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Make the switch
Libro.fm app with gift bow

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

The Passion of Mademoiselle S.

Due to publisher restrictions, this audiobook is unavailable for purchase in your selected country.
Translator Adriana Hunter
Length 8 hours 2 minutes
Language English
Narrators Jean-Yves Berthault & Imogen Church

This audiobook uses AI narration.

We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

Learn more
  Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

A collection of long lost love letters from 1928 to 1930, recently discovered in a dusty cellar in Paris.

Mademoiselle S., identified here only as Simone, was a well-educated and cultured lady living in Paris at the height of the glamorous roaring twenties. Simone’s letters to her married lover Charles express her desires, fears, anxieties and fantasies, and through them we become intimately acquainted with an extraordinary woman whose sexual appetite knew no bounds, and with an obsessive and destructive love that was taken to extremes.

Driven to increasing lengths to gain satisfaction, Simone may be seen as a woman ahead of her time, whose unconventional attitude challenges our preconceptions of female sexuality during this era, and was ultimately her downfall.

The Passion of Mademoiselle S. paints a vivid portrait of a violently passionate love affair that evolves in shocking and unexpected ways. Framed by illuminating insights from their editor, Jean-Yves Berthault, this correspondence opens a window into another time and another life, and a woman whose voice echoes down the century and still resonates today.

Jean-Yves Berthault is a French diplomat, fluent English speaker, and has worked professionally around the world. In 2012, when helping a close friend clear out her cellar in Paris, he stumbled upon an old attaché case buried deep beneath a high pile of discarded newspapers. Opening it, he discovered it was crammed full of letters dating from 1928, written by a woman who we shall call Simone. This was the start of a two-year project in which he collated the letters into chronological order and added historical and cultural footnotes. The letters are now a testament to a unique love affair and to a moment in history.

Jean-Yves Berthault is a French diplomat, fluent English speaker, and has worked professionally around the world. In 2012, when helping a close friend clear out her cellar in Paris, he stumbled upon an old attaché case buried deep beneath a high pile of discarded newspapers. Opening it, he discovered it was crammed full of letters dating from 1928, written by a woman who we shall call Simone. This was the start of a two-year project in which he collated the letters into chronological order and added historical and cultural footnotes. The letters are now a testament to a unique love affair and to a moment in history.

Adriana Hunter has translated some eighty books, mostly works of literary fiction. She won the 2011 Scott-Moncrieff Prize for her translation of Véronique Olmi’s Beside the Sea, and was twice shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. She lives in Kent, England.

Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!

Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Make the switch
Libro.fm app with gift bow

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

Reviews

Jean-Yves…has edited them lovingly…[He] adds depth with quirky historical footnotes. A treasure trove of love letters, found about 90 years after they were written, give an extraordinary and pulsating glimpse into the Paris of the Roaring Twenties. Expand reviews