Le Grand Meaulnes () is the only novel by French author Alain-Fournier, who was killed in the first month of World War I. The novel, published in 1913, a year before the author's death, is somewhat autobiographical – especially the name of the heroine Yvonne, for whom he had a doomed infatuation in Paris. Fifteen-year-old François Seurel narrates the story of his friendship 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. Title The title, , is French for "The Great Meaulnes". The difficulties in translating the French grand (meaning big, tall, great, etc.) and le domaine perdu ("lost estate/domain/demesne") have led to a variety of English titles, including The Wanderer, The Lost Domain, Meaulnes: The Lost Domain, The Wanderer or The End of Youth, Le Grand Meaulnes: The Land of the Lost Contentment, The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes) and Big Meaulnes (Le Grand Meaulnes). Le Grand Meaulnes inspired the title of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby. Despite this similarity, French translators of Fitzgerald's novel struggled in the same way to render the word "great", and chose Gatsby le magnifique (literally Gatsby the Magnificent). Plot summary François Seurel, the 15-year-old narrator of the book, is the son of M. Seurel, who is the director of the mixed-ages school in a small village in the Sologne, a region of lakes and sandy forests in the heartland of France. François is intrigued when 17-year-old Augustin Meaulnes, a bright young man from a modest background, arrives at the school. Because of his height, Augustin acquires the nickname "grand" ("tall"). He becomes a hero figure to the class and runs away one evening on an escapade where, after getting lost, he chances on a magical costume party where he is enchanted by the girl of his dreams, Yvonne de Galais, a character inspired by the real-life Yvonne de Quiévrecourt. She lives with her widowed father and her somewhat odd brother Frantz in a vast and ancient family château – Les Sablonnières – which has seen better days. The party was being held to welcome Frantz and the girl he was to marry, Valentine. However when she does not appear, Frantz attempts suicide but fails. After returning to school, Meaulnes has only one idea: to find the mysterious