Encouraged by her husband, Colette (1873-1954) fictionalized her own coming of age experiences in these four novels, marking the beginning of one of French literature's most colorful careers. Young Claudine endures public school in rural Burgundy and embarks on an affair with the assistant headmistress, while in later novels, Claudine sets out for Paris, where she will remake herself and become an independent woman. Narrated in the first person, these witty and observant novels are a remarkable self-portrait of a woman at a crossroads in her life, and a window onto Colette herself in the years before she became an icon.