If all else fails, you can order directly from Penguin at 80, but allow for delivery time and shipping costs. Secondhand copies are also available on Abebooks as well. The book is available through Amazon (also on Kindle), as well as Stanford Bookstore (65) Kepler’s in Menlo Park (65), and Bell’s Books in Palo Alto (65). The Times (London) praised Olivia’s “strange combination of strength and delicacy” and the Wall Street Journal noted that the book is “extravagantly French in its sensibilities.”ĭorothy Strachey and her famous brother, the writer Lytton Strachey, were prominent in the Bloomsbury group. Olivia, a 16-year-old English girl, finds herself falling under the spell of the charismatic Mademoiselle Julie, a founder of the school. The story traces the intense emotional currents among the girls and teachers in a finishing school outside Paris. “Dorothy Strachey (1865-1960) was the sister of the novelist Lytton Strachey and a prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group…….Olivia, originally published under a pseudonym, is her only novel.André Gide called Olivia“a little masterpiece,” and we think you’ll agree. In 1999, Olivia was included on the Publishing Triangle’s widely publicized list of the 100 Best Gay and Lesbian Novels of the 20th Century.

Colette wrote the screenplay for the 1951 film adaptation of the novel. Olivia was dedicated to the memory of Strachey’s friend Virginia Woolf and published to acclaim in 1949. Marie Souvestre, whose influence lived on through former students like Natalie Barney and Eleanor Roosevelt.

“Although not strictly autobiographical, Olivia draws on the author’s experiences at finishing schools run by the charismatic Mlle. Julie and the other head of the school, Mlle. Julie, and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Mlle. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress, Mlle. Dorothy Strachey’s classic Olivia captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. “Considered one of the most subtle and beautifully written lesbian novels of the century, this 1949 classic returns to print in a Cleis Press edition.

Olivia by dorothy strachey