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The Red and the BlackThe Red and the Black
The ambitious, hypersensitive carpenter’s son Julien Sorel schemes and seduces his way up from provincial obscurity toward the heights of Restoration France, torn between the red of the army and the black of the Church. A merciless portrait of a society and a self.
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A dazzling, ice-cold study of ambition and hypocrisy, with one of literature's most fascinating strivers at its centre. Modern, ironic, and psychologically fearless.
SettingRestoration France, 1820s
France under the Restoration, after Napoleon's fall, when the old aristocracy and the Church clawed back power and a clever, low-born young man could rise only by cunning and disguise.