When Pierre Loti--traveler, acrobat, naval officer, celebrated writer--died in 1923, he was given a state funeral, the only French writer to have received such an honor besides Victor Hugo. This spellbinding storyteller--bohemian, exotic and fiercely romantic--spent his life escaping the constraints of bourgeois France, and in so doing redefined his age. He traveled the South Seas, Asia and the Middle East (his great obsession), he loved with intense passion and freedom, and he wrote some of the most exquisite novels and travel books of his time. As adored as he was scorned by French society, Loti led the life that most romantics only dared write about.