AUDOUX, MARGUERITE. Marie Claire’s workshop; tr. by F. S. Flint. *$2 (3½c) Seltzer
21–759
“Marie-Claire,” to which “Marie Claire’s workshop” is a sequel, was published in 1911. Marie Claire is now employed as a seamstress in a workshop in Paris, and the book describes her life and work there, with character studies of her shopmates. Monsieur and Madame Dalignac are the kindly proprietors and they are portrayed vividly as are Sandrine and Bouledogue and Duretour and her lover and Gabielle and the others. There is also Clement, Madame Dalignac’s nephew, who wishes to make Marie Claire his wife. The strain of working against time to fill a promised order, the monotony of the dull season when there is no work, the everyday contact of the girls, all enter into the picture.
“Very simple and very real, told with sympathy, grace and a fine, sure artistry, this picture of ‘Marie Claire’s workshop’ is a most appealing book.”
+ N Y Times p20 N 21 ’20 640w
“In short, this is a special type of realism, and the cumulative effect of it ... recalls as its nearest parallel, not prose but verse, Hood’s ‘Song of the shirt.’” Calvin Winter
+ Pub W 98:1195 O 16 ’20 280w
“This is a book for gentle souls; although it is too deeply human for the ingenuous.” A. G. H. Spiers
+ Review 4:59 Ja 19 ’21 1100w