Le Calvaire is a thinly veiled autobiographical novel, which recounts the tortured and traumatic coming-of-age of the narrator Jean Mintie.It paints a nightmarish picture of late nineteenth-century French society. Mintie's progress through life is a descent into Hell, a plumbing of the lower depths, the martyrdom of a godless man in a godless age. The publication of Le Calvaire in 1886 marked a brilliant beginning for the Angry Young Man of the Age, who went on to flay the Establishment in Torture Garden and The Diary of a Chambermaid. 'There is no doubt that Mirbeau is an important writer and Dedalus should be applauded for their enterprise in bringing his work to us.' Peter Fawcett in The Times Literary Supplement