Les Malheurs de Sophie - The Books

In my previous post I wrote about the movie Les Malheurs de Sophie.  It was based on the famous novel written by La Comtesse de Ségur, a Russian aristocrat who married a Frenchman and later on wrote many novels in French dedicated to her grand-children (after whom she named all her book characters).

Photo Credit : Comtesse de Segur

The novel was first published in 1858 by Hachette with illustrations by Horace Castelli.  The adventures of Sophie is her most famous novel and is actually followed by 2 other books, forming a trilogy: Les Petites Filles Modèles (1858), and Les Vacances (1859).

Photo Credit : Library Mice

In French:

Volume 1 - Les Malheurs de Sophie

Volume 2 - Les Petites Filles Modèles

Volume 3 - Les Vacances
 

In English (translation by Stephanie Smee):

Book 1 - Sophie's Misfortunes

Book 2 - Camille and Madeleine

Book 3 - The Holidays

Photo Credit : Booktopia 

 

The English books are sold in Australia (but available worlwide via Booktopia) but I have not read them so I can't give you a review about them. But if you can't read French at all, they are the only English translation available to my knowledge. Please let me know if you find another version!

Photo Credit : Booktopia

The second book focuses on Camille and Madeleine but Sophie is still there. This novels introduces a new character, the little Marguerite, who is befriended by Camille and Madeleine and butts head with Sophie.  There is such a great camaderie among the characters and their adventures are riveting!  SPOILER: The story gets very sad at times though because Sophie is mistreated by her stepmother and I remember crying very much because the poor little girl was so unloved.


Photo Credit : Booktopia

The last novel in the trilogy is probably one of the best book I have read as a child.  There are many more characters added to the novel by now and our little girls have grown since the last two books.  If there could be a perfect summer vacation, this would be it.  It's like the tale of a summer camp vacation filled with adventures but set in the 19th century, in a French Castle.  It is really an amazing ending to the serie and it gave me a lasting impression of the story.

There have been many editions of this book and the two sequels, including a comic book version.  Other books from La Comtesse de Ségur are also available in that format.

Photo Credit : Amazon FR

I am fond of the Casterman edition with illustrations by Jobbé-Duval. But  I also like very much the  drawings by Castelli for the Collection from La Bibliothèque Rose, a book collection created by the publishing house Hachette for children from 6 to 12 years old.  There is a new collection by Hachette with new illustations by Iris de Moüy.

Another publisher house, FLEURUS, has launched a new edition of  Les Malheurs de Sophie in September 2012!  The illustrations are from Ariane Delrieu and they are absolutely fabulous! You can check her WEBSITE to see a glimpse of her art!



Photo Credit : Fleurus Editions

All the French books from the Countess are available online WikiSource La Bibliothèque Libre, but I would definitely recommend buying the paper version, not just because I am old school but because the pictures are half the fun!

Below are the links to the trilogy:

Volume 1 - Les Malheurs de Sophie

Volume 2 - Les Petites Filles Modèles

Volume 3 - Les Vacances

Warning: The stories of La Comtesse de Ségur often include physical punishments and sometimes very serious violent abuse of children so one should be aware of this before letting their children read the novels.  I personally loved the books because it depicted in great detail an era that was totally different from mine and that is the magic I think the books still convey.  
 

Les Malheurs de Sophie - The Movie

I am so excited to blog about this topic!  I am a big fan of the stories written by La Comtesse de Ségur.  I have read them when I was a kid and I still re-read them today.

Her most famous novel is probably Les Malheurs de Sophie which was published in 1859 and is about the story of a mischievious little girl named Sophie de Réan and her life with her cousin Paul and her two friends, Camille and Madeleine (who are featured in the book Les Petites Filles Modèles).  However, Sophie is far from perfect and the accounts of her adventures were sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but always very touching and memorable.

The success of the novel is such that there have been many editions and re-editions.  I am particularly fond of the Casterman collection of novels from the Comtesse de Ségur.  There have been 2 movies based on the book : a 1946 black and white movie and a 1979 in color. 

The latter one is the one I watched as a kid when it aired on TV. I can't tell you how much I loved that movie!   It was produced by the late Jean-Claude Brialy, who was also a famous French actor.  He first became well known for his acting in the French New Wave films and with many more movies afterward.  I have been looking everywhere for that movie but could not find anything.... until it was finally issued in DVD format in 2011!!!

Les Malheurs de Sophie - 1979 movie by Jean-Claude Brialy

I clicked on that purchase button quicker than you can say Yippee!  I remember fondly the movie theme song by Chanta Goya and the video below shows a few scenes from the movie as well.

I have viewed it a few times now and I must say it has not lost its charm.  I still love seeing the characters come to life, the beautiful costumes (HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THOSE DRESSES!) and the darling little actors playing Sophie and Paul. 

The movie follows closely the book story but out of the 21 chapters of the book, only 9 are acted out in the movie.  I don't mind so much because the movie would be much too long otherwise. But it would have been nice to see a sequel to feature the remaining chapters!

The image quality is not super crisp compared to what we are used to nowadays but it is not awful either.  The sound not so-so. I had to crank up the volume to hear the conversation.  It is especially annoying since there are no option for subtitles or dubbing. It is very unfortunate because I wished I could show this movie to the non-French-speaking children.  They still liked to watch it and were curious about the costumes and laughed at Sophie's mischiefs.
 

But I have one major complaint: they CUT OUT SOME SCENES! And it wasn't just any scenes but one important one : the argument Sophie had with Madeleine and Camille that lead her to wet her hair.  The DVD only shows the scene when Sophie got all wet which made no sense at all!   A few other scenes were cut as well such as the part preceding the picnic at the end, which was really annoying because once again the story made no sense when they cut out scenes like that!

So I am irked by this major flaw but I still love the movie and after years of waiting I would still recommend people to buy it because no other movies are like this one! The details in the costumes, castle life, servants interaction and everything else made it worth to watch over again and again.

There is also a cartoon version of Sophie's adventures but they are in French as well.

If you want to find out about what happens to Sophie, I recommend reading the books which I will write about in the next post.