Women Lovers, or The Third Woman by Natalie Clifford Barney

“It is time for dead languages to be quiet.”

“I have sometimes lost friends, but friends have never lost me.” “When you’re in love you never really know whether your elation comes from the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her whether the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or from the meeting of your sparks.” Natalie Clifford Barney with her longtime lover, Renee Vivien

“Lovers should also have their days off.” “If we keep an open mind, too much is likely to fall into it.” This semi-autobiographical novel was one of very few of Barney’s books that were translated into English. Many of her works were based on her own love affairs and friendships, the best known of which is Amants Féminins ou les Troisième ( Women Lovers or the Third Woman). She most always wrote in French, saying that it allowed her to fully express her emotions, even though English was her native language. She also used the wealth and privilege she was born into as a means of promoting other talented writers and artists. Though she published ten critically acclaimed books, she seems to be equally remembered for her colorful personal life as one of the movers and shakers of the Parisian lesbian circles of the time. Here you’ll find a selection of quotes by Natalie Clifford Barney on life and love, from a woman who lived and loved to the fullest.īarney was an expat living the high life in early twentieth-century Paris where she presided over a famous literary salon. Ray's translation is augmented by her essay and notes highlighting themes of modernism and queer studies, as well as by Melanie Hawthorne's introduction.Natalie Clifford Barney (1876 – 1972) was an American-born poet and novelist also known for her epigrams and pensées. It reveals a more complex Natalie Barney and expands modernist literary representations of lesbian love. Never before published in English, and only recently published in French, this modernist, experimental work has been brought to light by Chelsea Ray's research. Barney writes of an erotic liaison that breaks all taboos but also reveals N.'s vulnerability as she unexpectedly becomes the devastated 'third woman.' The story ends with a powerful dialogue on the challenges of love. In this barely disguised roman a clef, the legendary American heiress, writer, and arts patron Natalie Clifford Barney becomes the character N., the dashing Italian baroness Mimi Franchetti is M., and the beautiful French courtesan Liane de Pougy is L. This long-lost novel recounts a passionate triangle of love and loss among three of the most daring women of belle epoque Paris.

Women Lovers, or The Third Woman by Natalie Clifford Barney