Douglas Parmée (1914–2008) was a lecturer in modern languages at Cambridge and a Lifetime Fellow of Queens’ College. He translated many works of classic and contemporary literature from French, Italian, and German, receiving the Scott Moncrieff Prize for French translation in 1976. NYRB Classics publishes his translations of The Child by Jules Vallès, Afloat by Guy de Maupassant, and Nature Stories by Jules Renard.
Books
Irretrievable
How does a couple slowly drift apart until one day they find themselves in a situation that is beyond recall, from which they cannot go back? This question is at the heart of this timeless story of a marriage by one of Germany’s greatest novelists. “The most interesting German writer between Goethe and Mann” —Peter Gay
Nature Stories
Whimsical and charming miniature portraits of subjects drawn from the natural world: dogs, cats, pigs, roses, snails, trees, birds, and others. Renard’s sketches are masterpieces of compression and description, capturing both appearance and behavior through details that make the familiar unfamiliar, yet surprisingly true to life.
Afloat
Maupassant merges fact and fiction, dream and documentation in this seemingly simple logbook of a sailing cruise along the French Mediterranean coast. “[Afloat] has spontaneity, gaiety and freshness.”—Daily Telegraph (UK)
The Child
Vallès’s book is one of the funniest books in French literature, a triumph of insubordinate comedy over the forces of order and the self-appointed defenders of decency.
The Child
Vallès’s book is one of the funniest books in French literature, a triumph of insubordinate comedy over the forces of order and the self-appointed defenders of decency.