An atmospheric and mysterious tale of love and death, set in a crumbling Breton castle An isolated castle stands in a wild, desolate landscape, surrounded by dark woods. Its new owner, a rich, dissolute young man, has invited his best friend to stay. When he arrives, he brings with him a radiant, seductive and strangely detached young woman. She, in turn, will bring death and destruction to the Chateau d'Argol.?? With its opulent, atmospheric descriptions of a savage, surreal Breton landscape and its exquisite sense of foreboding, Chateau d'Argol is a work of beauty and terror. "[Gracq] is... the best landscape gardener of our literature-more precise than Chateaubriand, more musical than Stendhal, more sensual than Proust." Telerama Julien Gracq (1910-2007) taught history and geography in various lycees. A close friend of Andre Breton, his work was inspired by German Romanticism, and combines startling imagery with a rich, precise metre. Staunchly avoiding the French literary scene-he refused the Prix Goncourt in 1951-he is one of the few authors to have been published in the Bibliotheque de la Pleiade during his lifetime. He died in 2007 aged 97. Julien Gracq's A Dark Stranger is also available from Pushkin Press.