Used book – Atala, René, Les Natchez, François-René de Chateaubriand

"Atala and René are episodes detached from The Natchez. By bringing these three texts together for the first time, developed by Chateaubriand during his London exile (from 1797 to 1799), we wanted to restore them to their true light. Reintegrated into their original context, they indeed take on a new dimension: a novel of wild life which has, as a nostalgic horizon, nature (the splendor of American landscapes, from Louisiana to Canada), but which in reality articulates a problematic of the Fall; which designates the blockage of vital energies or the contradictions of desire; which finally proclaims the misfortune of being born in the century of Revolutions. This great fantastical text, placed under the sign of child-deaths, thus appears to us not only as the secret source that will later feed the Mémoires d'outre-tombe, but also as one of the most singular sagas of the revolutionary period."Jean-Claude Berchet.edited by Jean-Claude Berchet.