Virtue and Rosalind

Like being shown what a feather looks like in flight ... Serre will stroll confidently ahead knowing all the while exactly where she is going — if you trust her, the reading experience is revelatory * Financial Times *
A novel that is incredibly rich, yet imbued with lightness; its movement not linear, but impressionistic. A pleasure to read, and later, to think about -- Amina Cain, author of My New Face
A gorgeously textured study in composition – both of prose and of life itself. In these connected stories, Serre’s characters, objects and preoccupations weave a beguiling interior vocabulary that luxuriates in formal possibility. Both stylish and deceptively effortless, I can think of few other writers who are as attuned to the manifold pleasures of the text -- Daisy LaFarge, author of Lovebug
Virtue and Rosalind is enthralling in the leaps it takes through fashion, friendships, and literary forebears. At once bewildering and intimate, this is a book that feels like a treasured friend. I cannot stop thinking about it -- Charlotte Shevchenko Knight, author of Food for The Dead
Betting on the Nobel Prize is a risky errand, but Serre feels like an increasingly decent bet . . . She does more in 100 words than most writers do in 10,000. This tale of a woman’s love of art and life marks another success -- Best Books for 2026 * The Telegraph *
This book is like an enchanted castle. Speaking of her craft, Jane Austen said she worked on little pieces of ivory with a brush of extreme finesse. Anne Serre must have found that magic brush again at a flea market * Le Canard enchaîné *
With Serre, there is neither autofiction, nor autobiography, nor confession, nor historical novel, only fiction – pure fiction – and fantasy, in the manner of Franz Kafka or Robert Walser, whom she counts among her masters * Le Figaro littéraire *
A tribute to friendship, a stroll among beloved authors, and a poetic work of art in itself – sustained by an irony and wit that never let up * Le Temps *
Anne Serre observes life with intelligence and ingenuity, turning everyday facts into a source of delight, often bound up with the unexpected turns in her stories. Her writing is deeply controlled, and her surprising endings give enormous meaning to the whole * France Culture *
Anne Serre is a great writer, and this text is one of her finest * ELLE *