Les Enfants Terribles

Les Enfants Terribles is a 1929 novel by Jean Cocteau, published by Editions Bernard Grasset. It concerns two siblings, Elisabeth and Paul, who isolate themselves from the world as they grow up, an isolation which is shattered by the stresses of their adolescence. It was first translated into English by Samuel Putnam in 1930 and published by Brewer & Warren Inc. A later English translation was made by Rosamond Lehmann in 1955, and published by New Directions (ISBN 0811200213) in the U.S., and Mclelland & Stewart in Canada in 1966, with the title translated as The Holy Terrors. The book is illustrated by the author's own drawings. It was made into a film of the same name, a collaboration between Cocteau and director Jean-Pierre Melville in 1950, and inspired the opera of the same name by Philip Glass. The ballet La Boule de Neige by the choreographer Fabrizio Monteverde with music of Pierluigi Castellano is based on this novel.