Faubourg

One of Simenon’s most important “romans durs,” filled with childhood memories and thinly veiled anecdotes concerning his mother, father, uncles and aunts, Sunday outings in the countryside, and the streets of Liège. A forerunner of Pedigree, it was written at the domaine de La Cour-Dieu, Ingrannes (Loiret), in 1934, and continued in Papeete (Tahiti, French Polynesia) in the spring of 1935.

The novel, completed during the winter of 1935, was first serialized in the weekly Marianne, nos. 175–183, from 26 February to 22 April 1936 (in nine installments).

That year Simenon published four novels — Faubourg, L’Assassin, Le Blanc à lunettes and Le Testament Donadieu — for which Gaston Gallimard and Lucien Descaves pressed for one to be awarded the Prix Goncourt.

A very fine copy in wrappers.