One finds in these novels the still current topic of coming to terms with advancing age dealt with in an intense and thoughtful way. It is no accident that, when she was working on these novels, Colette had begun to consider that she was no longer young — she was in her mid-forties when she began Cheri. These two novels combined constitute a sort of keystone for the arch of Colette's work in fiction — and they are generally agreed to be the highest point in her novelistic achievement.

Although the title character, whose real name is Fred Peloux, is Cheri, the most interesting character of both books is Lea, the aging courtesan who nicknamed Cheri, and who commenced an affair with him when he was eighteen and she was forty-three. The story opens six years later, and the matter of aging soon...