The Image of Her

Simone de Beauvoir’s gripping classic of a woman striving for perfection

Laurence lives what appears to be an ideal existence. Her life features the trappings of 1960s Parisian bourgeoisie: money, a handsome husband, two daughters, and a lover. She also has a successful career as an advertising copywriter, though she can’t stop thinking about work while she’s at home and she dreams of domesticity while at the office. But Laurence gave up on happiness long ago, choosing instead to manifest the perfect image of wife, mother, daughter, homemaker, and career woman. It is only when she is relentlessly torn by the competing needs of her family and jarred into recognition of her own predicament by the despair of her ten-year-old daughter, Catherine, that Laurence begins to resist the hand she has been dealt.

The Image of Her, the 1966 final novel by Simone de Beauvoir, freshly translated here by Lauren Elkin, is rooted in the feminist revolutions of its era, yet it remains a strikingly relevant confrontation with the limits that society places on women and their power.

Author: Simone De Beauvoir,Simone de Beauvoir
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 01/13/2026
Series: Margellos World Republic of Letters
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.80h x 5.60w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780300287172
Language: English