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Women Lovers, or The Third Woman
This long-lost novel recounts a passionate triangle of love and loss among three of the most daring women of belle époque Paris. In this barely disguised roman à clef, the legendary American heiress, writer, and arts patron Natalie Clifford Barney, the dashing Italian baroness Mimi Franchetti, and the beautiful French courtesan Liane de Pougy share erotic liaisons that break all taboos and end in devastation as one unexpectedly becomes the “third woman.” 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 and translation.
216 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1926
18 people are currently reading
1243 people want to read
About the author
Natalie Clifford Barney
27 books102 followersNatalie Clifford Barney (31 October 1876 – 2 February 1972) was an American expatriate who lived, wrote and hosted a literary salon in Paris. She was a noted poet, memoirist and epigrammatist.
Barney's salon was held at her home on Paris's Left Bank for more than 60 years and brought together writers and artists from around the world, including many leading figures in French literature along with American and British Modernists of the Lost Generation. She worked to promote writing by women and formed a "Women's Academy" in response to the all-male French Academy while also giving support and inspiration to male writers from Remy de Gourmont to Truman Capote.
She was openly lesbian and began publishing love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900, considering scandal as "the best way of getting rid of nuisances". In her writings she supported feminism, paganism and pacifism. She opposed monogamy and had many overlapping, long and short-term relationships, including an on-and-off romance with poet Renée Vivien and a 50-year relationship with painter Romaine Brooks. Her life and love affairs served as inspiration for many novels, ranging from the salacious French bestseller Sapphic Idyll to The Well of Loneliness, arguably the most famous lesbian novel of the 20th century.[3]
Barney's salon was held at her home on Paris's Left Bank for more than 60 years and brought together writers and artists from around the world, including many leading figures in French literature along with American and British Modernists of the Lost Generation. She worked to promote writing by women and formed a "Women's Academy" in response to the all-male French Academy while also giving support and inspiration to male writers from Remy de Gourmont to Truman Capote.
She was openly lesbian and began publishing love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900, considering scandal as "the best way of getting rid of nuisances". In her writings she supported feminism, paganism and pacifism. She opposed monogamy and had many overlapping, long and short-term relationships, including an on-and-off romance with poet Renée Vivien and a 50-year relationship with painter Romaine Brooks. Her life and love affairs served as inspiration for many novels, ranging from the salacious French bestseller Sapphic Idyll to The Well of Loneliness, arguably the most famous lesbian novel of the 20th century.[3]
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 22, 2022
Women Lovers, or The Third Woman by Natalie Clifford Barney: This was written in La Belle Époque Paris. It is a mémoire of a time in the life of Natalie Clifford Barney and two other women, Liane de Pougy, and Mimi de Franchetti, and how the three interacted with each other. The prose and selection of just the right word is superb though it can be distracting. I had to reread at times to break the spell. I journeyed to a different time and world. As I turned the pages I felt the moving Sapphic desire jumping out at me. It is an amazing accomplishment considering it is from 1926. Bravo. Natalie Clifford Barney captured my emotion and desires and carried me on a stream of lovely Sapphic words. This book was written well before my time but expresses similar feelings which rest in the heart today. 5 stars Itis one to put on the to-be-read pile.
January 19, 2016
Je suis en train d'écrire un récit en français... I am working on a French review of this incredible French language novel, destined to be a classic of lesbian literature, that went unpublished for more than 80 years.
It's a gripping, page-turning read. Steamy. Shocking. Heart-wrenching. Exasperating. Beautiful, sad and haunting.
Amants féminins also offers the intense, added pleasure of fresh discovery. With four biographies and an entire cottage industry built around her legend as a lesbian seducer on par with Don Juan, who knew there was anything left to be learned about Natalie Barney? But until you've read this book, you never really knew l'Amazone. Barney as poet, lover, Modernist, philosopher, epigrammatist, American in Paris and secret wife: you will meet them all again here for the first time.
If you read French, if you love Paris in the Twenties and if you want to read lesbian erotica that surpasses anything Colette or Nin or even Duras ever wrote, run (don't walk) to buy this book from the boutique Paris publishing house, ErosOnyx.
On par with Vita Sackville-West's 1920 confession published in 1973 by her son, Nigel, in Portrait of a Marriage--only styled as a roman à clef--this is a detailed and profound recreation of, and meditation on, a three-way love affair gone bad. The events are absolutely true to life. And they will shock you. The fictional structure allows the author to treat the subject with the subtlety and creativity it deserves.
Barney sets the story mostly in Paris. 50-year-old N has fallen passionately in love with the gorgeous, 32-year-old Italian adventurer M (Mimi Franchetti). The two women create an unstable love triangle that the author places in the foreground. This is the trilateral obsession between herself, Franchetti and L, the irresistible celebrity, Liane de Pougy, a retired courtesan who is now Princess Ghika.
That laison (N - M - L) is anchored by (and contrasted with) another, more stable, ménage à trois Barney was simultaneously involved in: the one with Lily de Gramont and Romaine Brooks that lasted a lifetime. It's a Gordion knot that tightens itself when we learn that Franchetti and Brooks had been lovers the previous year; and that Barney and Pougy have also had a torrid affair, long before Pougy married for the royal title she coveted and the paid staff that went with it. (Back then, as Pougy had tried so patiently--or was it cruelly?--to explain, Natalie simply hadn't been rich enough to buy her out of "that business of the bed.")
Francesco Rapazzini's biography of Gramont (which I'm translating) adds more juicy tidbits to the stew. Gramont and Barney made a secret marriage contract in 1918 that bound them for life (but not on terms of sexual exclusivity) and expressly put their fidelity to that relationship above all others. Brooks was aware of these terms, which she accepted. What's more, Gramont and Franchetti were cousins. And that's not all. Barney, Gramont and Pougy had barely survived a steamy three-way love affair of their own a few years earlier. When the novel begins in the spring of 1925 or 1926, with white-hot passion spinning out of control, neither Pougy nor Franchetti understands the degree to which Gramont potentially controls events. As with all great romans à clef, there is a hidden key: Lily de Gramont.
Who's the destroyer here? Franchetti, the beguiling and sexually voracious young flapper? Pougy, the gold-digger, still a consummate manipulator in spite of her royal retirement from service? Or Barney herself?
To N's credit, and to Barney's, these are all questions she asks herself, baring her soul on the page.
Amants féminins is a passionate (thus uneven) book written in the dark despair of lost love, making it the only one of Barney's memoirs where she regrets her weaknesses and admits to both failures and real suffering. This is how Barney really must have been in love: aware that she was powerless over need and desire, without ever giving up trying to manage for the best. One can't help admitting and admiring, in spite of Barney's promiscuity, the brave, knightly quality she had in love, not unlike Saint-Exupéry's as expressed so beautifully in Southern Mail. It was a drive, a life force, that compelled her to keep taking action up til the last possible moment, like a pilot on a crash course. "The worst is not that one gets burned," she wrote, "but that the flame goes out."
You really feel her vulnerability, her sorrow, her aching heart in Amants féminins. As a result, this book contains some of Barney's best writing. There are gorgeous passages of lyrical description. Modern set pieces that rival the best of Hemingway or Fitzgerald or Dos Passos from the period, as good as any of today's best screenwriting. Deep meditations on the philosophy of love, sex and monogamy between women. Passages revealing Barney's bruised vanity, assaulted by the realities of falling in love with somebody half her age, "33, when everybody else is older." Unforgettable passages on death and dying, where Barney vacillates between defiance and resignation, in despair over the forced separation from Lily--separation by death--that is their inescapable destiny. And bold, raw, explicit sex writing that sometimes turns violent. It's eroticism that was simply unheard of for 1926, even from the pen of a self-proclaimed radical lesbian. And it's still sexy, still disturbing, today.
Many thanks to Chelsea Ray and Yvan Quintin, who painstakingly established the text from typescripts and Barney's handwritten notes, for rescuing this erotic classic of women in love from oblivion. Now for translation into English!
It's a gripping, page-turning read. Steamy. Shocking. Heart-wrenching. Exasperating. Beautiful, sad and haunting.
Amants féminins also offers the intense, added pleasure of fresh discovery. With four biographies and an entire cottage industry built around her legend as a lesbian seducer on par with Don Juan, who knew there was anything left to be learned about Natalie Barney? But until you've read this book, you never really knew l'Amazone. Barney as poet, lover, Modernist, philosopher, epigrammatist, American in Paris and secret wife: you will meet them all again here for the first time.
If you read French, if you love Paris in the Twenties and if you want to read lesbian erotica that surpasses anything Colette or Nin or even Duras ever wrote, run (don't walk) to buy this book from the boutique Paris publishing house, ErosOnyx.
On par with Vita Sackville-West's 1920 confession published in 1973 by her son, Nigel, in Portrait of a Marriage--only styled as a roman à clef--this is a detailed and profound recreation of, and meditation on, a three-way love affair gone bad. The events are absolutely true to life. And they will shock you. The fictional structure allows the author to treat the subject with the subtlety and creativity it deserves.
Barney sets the story mostly in Paris. 50-year-old N has fallen passionately in love with the gorgeous, 32-year-old Italian adventurer M (Mimi Franchetti). The two women create an unstable love triangle that the author places in the foreground. This is the trilateral obsession between herself, Franchetti and L, the irresistible celebrity, Liane de Pougy, a retired courtesan who is now Princess Ghika.
That laison (N - M - L) is anchored by (and contrasted with) another, more stable, ménage à trois Barney was simultaneously involved in: the one with Lily de Gramont and Romaine Brooks that lasted a lifetime. It's a Gordion knot that tightens itself when we learn that Franchetti and Brooks had been lovers the previous year; and that Barney and Pougy have also had a torrid affair, long before Pougy married for the royal title she coveted and the paid staff that went with it. (Back then, as Pougy had tried so patiently--or was it cruelly?--to explain, Natalie simply hadn't been rich enough to buy her out of "that business of the bed.")
Francesco Rapazzini's biography of Gramont (which I'm translating) adds more juicy tidbits to the stew. Gramont and Barney made a secret marriage contract in 1918 that bound them for life (but not on terms of sexual exclusivity) and expressly put their fidelity to that relationship above all others. Brooks was aware of these terms, which she accepted. What's more, Gramont and Franchetti were cousins. And that's not all. Barney, Gramont and Pougy had barely survived a steamy three-way love affair of their own a few years earlier. When the novel begins in the spring of 1925 or 1926, with white-hot passion spinning out of control, neither Pougy nor Franchetti understands the degree to which Gramont potentially controls events. As with all great romans à clef, there is a hidden key: Lily de Gramont.
Who's the destroyer here? Franchetti, the beguiling and sexually voracious young flapper? Pougy, the gold-digger, still a consummate manipulator in spite of her royal retirement from service? Or Barney herself?
To N's credit, and to Barney's, these are all questions she asks herself, baring her soul on the page.
Amants féminins is a passionate (thus uneven) book written in the dark despair of lost love, making it the only one of Barney's memoirs where she regrets her weaknesses and admits to both failures and real suffering. This is how Barney really must have been in love: aware that she was powerless over need and desire, without ever giving up trying to manage for the best. One can't help admitting and admiring, in spite of Barney's promiscuity, the brave, knightly quality she had in love, not unlike Saint-Exupéry's as expressed so beautifully in Southern Mail. It was a drive, a life force, that compelled her to keep taking action up til the last possible moment, like a pilot on a crash course. "The worst is not that one gets burned," she wrote, "but that the flame goes out."
You really feel her vulnerability, her sorrow, her aching heart in Amants féminins. As a result, this book contains some of Barney's best writing. There are gorgeous passages of lyrical description. Modern set pieces that rival the best of Hemingway or Fitzgerald or Dos Passos from the period, as good as any of today's best screenwriting. Deep meditations on the philosophy of love, sex and monogamy between women. Passages revealing Barney's bruised vanity, assaulted by the realities of falling in love with somebody half her age, "33, when everybody else is older." Unforgettable passages on death and dying, where Barney vacillates between defiance and resignation, in despair over the forced separation from Lily--separation by death--that is their inescapable destiny. And bold, raw, explicit sex writing that sometimes turns violent. It's eroticism that was simply unheard of for 1926, even from the pen of a self-proclaimed radical lesbian. And it's still sexy, still disturbing, today.
Many thanks to Chelsea Ray and Yvan Quintin, who painstakingly established the text from typescripts and Barney's handwritten notes, for rescuing this erotic classic of women in love from oblivion. Now for translation into English!
July 25, 2021
This was fun and surprisingly direct for 1926. Very clear lesbian desire throughout (at times graphically but artfully described). I absolutely love it. I love this more than Nightwood or Ladies Almanack (but not necessarily Well of Loneliness despite it being sad). She’s got less internalized issues than Djuna Barnes (and frankly I think Barnes was a bit rude in her depictions of her). Anyway, it’s great. (Check my highlights for uhhh highlights?) There are lots of witty dialogue snippets, which is what she does best.
August 1, 2025
4th read: annual reread of the book that started it all. . . and still one of my favorite books!! fun to read liane's account of the affair in her My Blue Notebooks side by side ^^ also think it's interesting how this book is dedicated to mimi and not both her and liane- i would think, since this whole relationship ended liane and natalie's relationship of 28 years, that she would dedicate it to liane too like an explanation for their breakup- perhaps it's dedicated to mimi solely because she doubts mimi knows how much she was affected by them
3rd read: it's exhausting to read this, but so flowery and rich that it's rewarding. there are the constant themes of jealousy, sisterhood, and love that are wonderfully woven into each other. i can imagine this as some avant garde film where the characters don't really speak to each other, the music is melancholic like a walk through paris at night, and N's gaze is averted from the camera or scribbling away in her notebook. though many of the chapters are more so set in the intimate, private corners of life like letters or N's monologues. the usage of prose, poetry, and letters creates this sense of peeking through the windows~
2nd read: first book i rated 5/5 in 2023!! the 1st time i read it, i more or less skimmed over it but i really feel you need to take it slow with this.. it's so, so good. the language is fascinatingly poetic and beautiful beyond words- probably the most unique thing i have ever read
"Let them get intensely involved or have as much fun as they can! Which one will destroy the other? To no longer be the buffer between these two destructive, devastating principles. To prevent L. from destroying M., or M. destroying L.? The match is equal. Place your bets, Mesdames! You can't waltz as a threesome. Other dances need to be created. . ." (96)
"Most of us aspire to love, to lose ourselves-others love to find themselves. I don't know which of the two is better-I have felt the exaltation of losing myself-and so much happiness in finding myself again." (135)
3rd read: it's exhausting to read this, but so flowery and rich that it's rewarding. there are the constant themes of jealousy, sisterhood, and love that are wonderfully woven into each other. i can imagine this as some avant garde film where the characters don't really speak to each other, the music is melancholic like a walk through paris at night, and N's gaze is averted from the camera or scribbling away in her notebook. though many of the chapters are more so set in the intimate, private corners of life like letters or N's monologues. the usage of prose, poetry, and letters creates this sense of peeking through the windows~
2nd read: first book i rated 5/5 in 2023!! the 1st time i read it, i more or less skimmed over it but i really feel you need to take it slow with this.. it's so, so good. the language is fascinatingly poetic and beautiful beyond words- probably the most unique thing i have ever read
"Let them get intensely involved or have as much fun as they can! Which one will destroy the other? To no longer be the buffer between these two destructive, devastating principles. To prevent L. from destroying M., or M. destroying L.? The match is equal. Place your bets, Mesdames! You can't waltz as a threesome. Other dances need to be created. . ." (96)
"Most of us aspire to love, to lose ourselves-others love to find themselves. I don't know which of the two is better-I have felt the exaltation of losing myself-and so much happiness in finding myself again." (135)
January 17, 2025
+1 ster voor de context (onderwerp+tijd waarin het geschreven is=🤯) en de hoeveelheid zinnen die ik heb gefotografeerd
June 3, 2022
Much better than The Well of Loneliness. Explicit, witty, modern. This unearthed 1926 roman à clef is destined to become one of the great queer classics.
3.5
3.5
December 15, 2024
Vond het best wel ingewikkeld en moeilijk te volgens soms, maar wel weer mooie zinnen en uitingen van gevoelens dus vind het moeilijk om goed oordeel te geven. Denk dat het te maken heeft met de vorm van het boek en het feit dat het uit 1926 komt? Zeer vooruitstrevend wel! Een keertje nogmaals lezen dan maar?
March 31, 2025
Queer boekenclub #1
Eigenlijk heb ik de neiging dit boek 1 ster te geven, maar for the sake of it krijgt het een tweede. Die tweede ster dan wegens de thematiek en het lief: het boek gaat over een polyamoreuze relatie tussen drie vrouwen in 1927 en dat is best interessant. Maar verder moet je jezelf door dit boek worstelen. Het wisselt te vaak van vorm en het is moeilijk (onmogelijk?) om te verbinden met de personages.
Er valt natuurlijk veel over te reflecteren. En dat heb ik ook gedaan, want het was het eerste boek dat ik met mijn nieuwe Queer Boekenclub las. Het leverde wel fijne, kwetsbare gesprekken op over liefde versus passie, polyamorie en gay zijn. Dat smaakt naar meer. Dit boek absoluut niet.
Eigenlijk heb ik de neiging dit boek 1 ster te geven, maar for the sake of it krijgt het een tweede. Die tweede ster dan wegens de thematiek en het lief: het boek gaat over een polyamoreuze relatie tussen drie vrouwen in 1927 en dat is best interessant. Maar verder moet je jezelf door dit boek worstelen. Het wisselt te vaak van vorm en het is moeilijk (onmogelijk?) om te verbinden met de personages.
Er valt natuurlijk veel over te reflecteren. En dat heb ik ook gedaan, want het was het eerste boek dat ik met mijn nieuwe Queer Boekenclub las. Het leverde wel fijne, kwetsbare gesprekken op over liefde versus passie, polyamorie en gay zijn. Dat smaakt naar meer. Dit boek absoluut niet.
November 30, 2024
Het zal wel goed zijn maar ik ben niet intelligent genoeg om hier veel plezier aan te beleven :)
February 20, 2025
Op de achterflap in de bib stond in dikke vette letters 'eerste boek over lesbische polyamorie'. Tja, dan heb je mij natuurlijk. Hoewel ik op zich sceptisch ben tegenover het gebruik van anachronistische termen in queer history ben ik ook gewoon een meisje die van snacks houdt.
Snacken heb ik niet gedaan. Meisjes... Wat was me dit zeg? Het moet gezegd: 't is fantastisch om sapfische liefde zo vleselijk beschreven te zien worden in de jaren 20 van de vorige eeuw. Er wordt niet rond de pot gedraaid (sorry, pun not intended). Ergens vind ik het ook opmerkelijk dat de vrouwenliefde niet als problematisch wordt afgedaan en er weinig invloed is van de heteronormatieve maatschappij in de beleving van de driehoeksverhouding. Ik gun het hen van harte.
Maar dan... ay caramba, deze schrijfstijl is niet voor mij. Ik zou nog sneller de Dode Zee-rollen begrijpen. Ik blijf het zeggen: ik heb een bloedhekel aan gebrekkige communicatie en Jezus, wordt er hier veel gezegd zonder effectief iets te communiceren! Ik dacht dat het aan de Nederlandse vertaling lag dus had ik de Engelse vertaling opgeduikeld (mijn Frans is hier zeker te slecht voor). Dat maakte me niet wijzer. Barney ook niet me dunkt.
Snacken heb ik niet gedaan. Meisjes... Wat was me dit zeg? Het moet gezegd: 't is fantastisch om sapfische liefde zo vleselijk beschreven te zien worden in de jaren 20 van de vorige eeuw. Er wordt niet rond de pot gedraaid (sorry, pun not intended). Ergens vind ik het ook opmerkelijk dat de vrouwenliefde niet als problematisch wordt afgedaan en er weinig invloed is van de heteronormatieve maatschappij in de beleving van de driehoeksverhouding. Ik gun het hen van harte.
Maar dan... ay caramba, deze schrijfstijl is niet voor mij. Ik zou nog sneller de Dode Zee-rollen begrijpen. Ik blijf het zeggen: ik heb een bloedhekel aan gebrekkige communicatie en Jezus, wordt er hier veel gezegd zonder effectief iets te communiceren! Ik dacht dat het aan de Nederlandse vertaling lag dus had ik de Engelse vertaling opgeduikeld (mijn Frans is hier zeker te slecht voor). Dat maakte me niet wijzer. Barney ook niet me dunkt.
September 9, 2019
I'm a big queer nerd, so I absolutely loved this book! I think I might have enjoyed all the history laid our in the translator's notes and introduction (the first third of the whole book is spent on these things), just as much as the story itself. I love the translation, and love the Natalie Clifford Barney that shines through! The history\intro\notes are a little dense, but thoroughly enjoyable. The story is engrossing; easily one of the most lettered dyke dramas I've read! Highly recommend if this stuff (lettered lesbians!) is also your cup of tea!
January 10, 2025
Favoriete zinnen:
"Iemand nodig hebben, het is als overspel
tegen de grandeur die in Onszelf schuilt."
"Ze zet spullen altijd terug op hun plek - en geeft vrouwen, na gebruik, terug aan hun man."
"Ik doe geloften aan de wassende maan. Die dunne maan, een zilveren wimper die door de pure adem van mijn verlangens zo hoog is vastgezet!"
"Iemand nodig hebben, het is als overspel
tegen de grandeur die in Onszelf schuilt."
"Ze zet spullen altijd terug op hun plek - en geeft vrouwen, na gebruik, terug aan hun man."
"Ik doe geloften aan de wassende maan. Die dunne maan, een zilveren wimper die door de pure adem van mijn verlangens zo hoog is vastgezet!"
November 4, 2018
My first encounter with Natalie Clifford Barney, and certainly not the last. I honestly feel like I need to read it again to fully absorb the wit and insight here. And I just want to know more about lesbians in Paris in the early 20th century!
February 3, 2025
Genoten, maar wel een boek waar je je aandacht bij moet houden. Lekker rommelig vol inperfecte personages en echte emoties. De sfeer, de dramatische flair van de karakters en het taalgebruik allen zo heerlijk frans
May 5, 2025
Punten voor de thematiek maar minder punten voor hoe lastig ik ‘t te volgen vond. Het hielp niet dat ik het lange tijd niet heb opgepakt, maar dat zegt mogelijk ook veel.
“Ze waren natuurlijk voor elkaar gemaakt, en ik om alleen te blijven.” — p. 182
“Ze waren natuurlijk voor elkaar gemaakt, en ik om alleen te blijven.” — p. 182
February 4, 2019
As a curiosity, it’s worth reading (very early depiction of lesbians), but not much character development.
September 22, 2019
If u love French modernism and group sex, dive in baby the water’s perfect
Read
January 19, 2025kan hier geen rating aan geven want ik snapte niet alles.
Read
February 24, 2025finally finishing a book this year. oops.
anyways im obsessed w barney and her polyamorous lesbian life.
“The worst isn’t that we burn ourselves, but that the fire goes out.”
anyways im obsessed w barney and her polyamorous lesbian life.
“The worst isn’t that we burn ourselves, but that the fire goes out.”
July 22, 2025
wat een heerlijk, onnavolgbaar, frans, non-monogaam, lesbisch drama is dit. en dat 100 jaar geleden geschreven 🔥❤️
November 16, 2025
5 sterren voor het thema en een inkijkje in de lesbische wereld van Parijs in 1926. Maar ik kon het verhaal heel moelijk volgen.
Read
May 8, 2025“Ik heb de ambitie zowel de boog, de pijl als het doelwit te zijn”
February 16, 2017
Here is this novel, written in the early 20th Century, that is autobiographical. It tells the fascinating story of 3 women in relationship. Two in love, add a third, separate two, form new two, one lady out. Terrific notes and wonderfully unique style.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews