Madame Chrysantheme is a novel by French author Pierre Loti. The story is set in Japan and follows the protagonist, a French naval officer named Lieutenant Louis-Marie Julien, who is sent to Nagasaki to serve on a French warship. While in Nagasaki, Julien falls in love with a Japanese woman named O-Kiku, who is also known as Madame Chrysantheme. O-Kiku is a geisha, and their relationship is complicated by cultural differences and the fact that Julien is only in Nagasaki for a short period of time. The novel explores themes of love, cultural clashes, and the exoticism of Japan. It is a classic of French literature and is often cited as an early example of Orientalism in Western literature.1890. After joining the French Navy, Loti (pen name of Julien Marie Viaud) saw the world from shipboard. He spent long months among the palm groves of the South Seas; he visited the scorching coast of Senegal and the seas of Iceland. A prolific writer, Loti used every strange and exotic scene as a background for his romance novels. Madame Chrysantheme is an impressionistic diary of Loti’s trip to Japan, his encounter with a famous Japanese girl and their romance. This romantic tale of travel and adventure in Japan is thought to have influenced Puccini’s Madam Butterfly. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world’s literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.