***   A  REAL  COLLECTIBLE !!   SCARCE AS HEN'S TEETH IN THIS CONDITION   ***

SYNOPSIS

The third novel of the incomparable Clochemerle series. The little French town in the Beaujolais has discovered an unknown mineral spring, and there are those who want to turn it into a great spa. 

Little Beaujolais village of Clochemerle was on the way to being Europe's top watering-place… At first the spring was just a tiny jet of water; soon it became like an arm, a thigh, then a great foaming, bubbling torrent and the little Beaujolais village of Clochemerie was on the way to being Europe's top watering-place. Filled with a sprawling, rumbustious, fornicating cast of quacks, wine-dressers, cocottes, policemen, gangsters and hypochondriacs   it's a deeeelightful  french farce !!

Author

Gabriel Chevallier (3 May 1895 – 6 April 1969) was a French novelist widely known as the author of the satire Clochemerle.

Born in Lyon in 1895, Gabriel Chevallier was educated in various schools before entering Lyon Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1911. He was called up at the start of World War 1 and wounded a year later, but returned to the front where he served as an infantryman until the war's end. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre and  Chevalier da la Legion d’honneur 

Following the war he undertook several jobs including art teacher, journalist and commercial traveller before starting to write in 1925. His novel La Peur (Fear) published in 1930 drew upon his own experiences and formed a damning indictment of the war. He was married with one son and died in Cannes in 1969.

Clochemerle was written in 1934 and has been translated into twenty-six languages and sold several million copies. It was dramatised first in a 1947 film by  Pierre Chenal and in 1972 by the BBC. He wrote three sequels: Clochemerle Babylon (Clochemerle-Babylone, 1951), *Clochemerle-les-Bains (1963), and L’Envers de Clochemerle (1966). In the USA the Clochemerle books were also published under the English titles The Scandals of Clochmerle (1937) = Clochmerle, and The Wicked Village (1956) = Clochemerle-Babylone.

Other of his books translated into English include: Sainte Colline (Sainte-Colline, 1937), Cherry (Ma Petite Amie Pomme, 1940), The Affairs of Flavie or The Euffe Inheritance (Les Héritiers Euffe,1945), and Mascarade (1948).

Other books in French include: Clarisse Vernon, Propre a Rien, Chemins de Solitude, Le Guerres General.