In 1937, Roger Martin du Gard won the Nobel Prize for Literature; his major work, Les Thibault, a roman fleuve, published as a series of five novels, follows the fortunes of the two Thibault brothers, Antoine and Jacques, from their bourgeois upbringing, through the First World War, to their deaths. Their lives are highly influenced by the constant and virtuous Mrs. Fontanin, the sweet Gise, the enigmatic Jenny and the sensitive and undecipherable Rachel.