Le Grand Meaulnes is the only novel by French author Alain-Fournier. Alain-Fournier was the pseudonym of Henri-Alban Fournier (1886–1914), a French author and soldier.
Fifteen-year-old François Seurel narrates the story of his relationship with seventeen-year-old Augustin Meaulnes as Meaulnes searches for his lost love. Impulsive, reckless and heroic, Meaulnes embodies the romantic ideal, the search for the unobtainable, and the mysterious world between childhood and adulthood.
François, the narrator of the book, is the son of M. Seurel, who is the director of the school in a small village in the Sologne, a region of lakes and sandy forests. After arriving in class, Augustin Meaulnes, who comes from a poor background, soon disappears. He returns from an escapade he had which was an incredible and magical costume party where he met the girl of his dreams, Yvonne de Galais.
