Count D'Orgel's Ball

“Lovelier than Proust and truer than Balzac….”
— Jean Cocteau

“Raymond Radiguet’s Count d’Orgel’s Ball is a prototypically French novella: irreducibly classical, ruthlessly analytical, and so thoroughly disabused that it is hard to believe anyone so young could have written it. Never has grace been so curt, or tact so indecent, or psychology so diabolical. And yet, the tragedy of this young author’s death shadows us on each and every page of this unforgivably short novel and reminds us that the word ‘genius’ is not inappropriate.”
— André Aciman

“Extraordinary assurance of this book…It partakes of the nature of a wager or an acrobatic feat. The achivement is almost perfect.”
— André Gide