Review copies: Madame Chrysanthème
Madame Chrysanthème
by
Pierre Loti
Literary fiction
The source novel for Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly!
First published in French in 1887
First new English translation in over a century,
by Clémence Aubert
Espresso Publishing House
Upcoming release: July 14, 2026 – Bastille Day!
(Kindle and paperback)
222 pages
Check the book on Goodreads
A French naval officer arrives in Nagasaki in 1885. He arranges a temporary marriage to a young Japanese woman — he calls her Chrysanthème, after the flower. He will stay for three months, then leave for sea. The arrangement is practical: a house on the hillside above the harbor, a few household objects, a sum paid to the family. What he does not expect is the quality of his own perception.
Loti watches everything and records everything: the harbor light, the paper screens, the small domestic ceremonies, the distance between his understanding and hers. The irony the novel earns is not cheap — Loti knows he is a guest in a world he will never enter, and he does not flatter himself. The failure of comprehension may be mutual; that is the book’s quiet, unsentimental heart.
The genealogy runs directly: John Luther Long read Loti before writing his 1898 short story, David Belasco staged Long, Puccini saw Belasco — and one of the most-performed operas in the world began with this book. The opera made it a love story; the novel, restored to its own register, is something stranger and more honest.
For readers of nineteenth-century French literature, Japan-meets-Europe and Japonisme writing, the cultural history behind Puccini’s repertoire, and the work of Pierre Loti — author of Le Mariage de Loti, Aziyadé, and Pêcheur d’Islande — this is the novel returned to literary English for the first time.
Translation by Clémence Aubert from the Calmann-Lévy text; introduction by Idara Crespi tracing the European Japonisme that runs from Loti to Debussy to Puccini; historical notes and translator’s glossary.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pierre Loti (1850–1923),
born Louis Marie-Julien Viaud,
was a French naval officer
and one of the most widely read French novelists
of the late nineteenth century.
He served on naval postings across the Mediterranean,
the Pacific, and the Far East,
and his fiction draws directly on his ports of call
— Tahiti (Le Mariage de Loti, 1880),
Senegal (Le Roman d’un spahi, 1881),
Brittany (Pêcheur d’Islande, 1886),
Japan (Madame Chrysanthème, 1887),
and Turkey (Aziy adé, 1879).
He was elected to the Académie française in 1891 (the picture was taken on the day of his reception).
Henry James and Marcel Proust both admired him;
his work shaped European literary Japonisme
and went on to influence Puccini’s Madama Butterfly through John Luther Long and David Belasco.
He died at Hendaye in 1923.
This English edition is translated by Clémence Aubert,
with an introduction by Idara Crespi, founding publisher of Espresso Publishing House.
Idara was born in Milan, grew up between Italy and Canada, and lives in Calgary;
she started Espresso Publishing House to bring overlooked foreign-language fiction
into English in editions that match the books they are.
Espresso Publishing House publishes new translations of French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Russian classics. More languages coming!
If you want to receive news of their new publications, sign up here.
TO REQUEST A REVIEW COPY
5 e-copies (epub or pdf) available,
for an honest review on your blog, Goodreads, Amazon, or social media.
July 1, 2026
WordsAndPeace
France Book Tours 