Letters To Sartre

Simone de Beauvoir

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Paperback

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English

Vintage Classics
18 June 2026

Autobiography: general; Literary studies: from c 1900 -; Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers

These intimate love letters reveal the close, open relationship between

de Beauvoir and Sartre, two of the twentieth century’s most groundbreaking thinkers - two people living out their philosophy.

De Beauvoir lived her feminist philosophy. She never married or had children, she had many affairs with both men and women, and she actively defied societal norms for women of her time. At the same time she conducted an intense, long-term relationship with the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who she referred to as her husband.

Beauvoir and Sartre met as philosophy students in Paris in 1929. For over 50 years, until their deaths in the 1980s, the couple had a close, open relationship. This book contains her love letters to him, revealing the details of her everyday life and her passion for the man who shared her ideals. It is an intimate portrait of a woman living in an adventurous, complicated way in the name of individual freedom.

De Beauvoir and Sartre are buried together under a shared gravestone in Montparnasse cemetery in Paris. Despite her career as a writer, philosopher and the founder of modern feminism, de Beauvoir stated that her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre was ‘the one undoubted success’ of her life.

‘For 51 years, the conversations between them created ideas, books, and a bond which other passions enraged or enriched, but never altogether ruptured. It was, for De Beauvoir, an experiment in loving’ Guardian

'An opportunity to hear a vigorous and innovative thinker...speaking in her abrasive, touching, breathtakingly candid private voice' Sunday Times

TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY QUINTIN HOARE

By: Simone de Beauvoir
Imprint: Vintage Classics
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 131mm, Spine: 32mm
Weight: 385g
ISBN: 9781529961973
ISBN 10: 1529961971
Pages: 544
Publication Date: 18 June 2026
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , ELT Advanced , A / AS level
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris in 1908. In 1929 she became the youngest person ever to obtain the agrégation in philosophy at the Sorbonne, placing second to Jean-Paul Sartre. She taught at the lycées at Marseille and Rouen from 1931-1937, and in Paris from 1938-1943. After the war, she emerged as one of the leaders of the existentialist movement, working with Sartre on Les Temps Mordernes. The author of several books including The Mandarins (1957) which was awarded the Prix Goncourt, de Beauvoir was one of the most influential thinkers of her generation. She died in 1986.

Reviews for Letters To Sartre

There is more than a whiff of Les Liaisons Dangereuses about these pages * Spectator * This is a vivid piece of unexpurgated social history, and an opportunity to hear a vigorous and innovative thinker...speaking in her abrasive, touching, breathtakingly candid private voice * Sunday Times * Wonderful… what really shines through is de Beauvoir’s simultaneously maintained autonomy and symbiotic relationship with Sartre, her “beloved little one”, along with their total commitment to a life spent in pursuit of ideals, together * Irish Times *