A roman à clef or roman à clé (French for "novel with a key") is a novel describing real-life events behind a façade of fiction. The "key", not present in the text, is the correlation between events and characters in the novel and events and characters in real life. A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... The Three Graces, here in a painting by Sandro Botticelli, were the goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility in Greek mythology. ...

Reasons why an author might choose the roman à clef format include:

• Satire;
• Writing about controversial topics and/or reporting inside information on scandals without giving rise to charges of libel.
• A roman à clef also gives the author the opportunity to turn the tale the way the author would like it to have gone.

Since its original use in the context of writings, the roman à clef technique is also used in the theatre and in movies, like The Great Dictator depicting Hitler and nazism. Satire is a literary technique of writing or art which principally ridicules its subject (for example, individuals, organizations, or states) often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change. ... A scandal involves widely publicized allegations of wrong-doing, disgrace or moral outrage. ... In English and American law, and systems based on them, libel and slander are two forms of defamation (or defamation of character), which is the tort or delict of making a false statement of fact that injures someones reputation. ... The Great Dictator is a film directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin. ... Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945, standard German pronunciation in the IPA) was the Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. ... National Socialism redirects here. ...

Some notable romans à clef:

• The novels of Jack Kerouac, most famously On the Road.
• Virtually all of the novels of Thomas Love Peacock (1785 - 1866) presuppose a knowledge of English intellectuals and currents of thought of the time.
• Glenarvon (1816) by Lady Caroline Lamb which chronicles her affair with Lord Byron (thinly disguised as the title character).
• The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts the participants in the Brook Farm experiment, under the veil of a story about the search for a magic elixir.
• The Lady of Aroostook depicts Emily Dickinson's romantic engagements with several men.
• Röda rummet (Red room) by August Strindberg depicts real intellectuals of the time.
• Crome Yellow (1921), Antic Hay (1923) and Those Barren Leaves (1925) by Aldous Huxley are all satires of contemporary events.
• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway is a disguised account of Hemingway's literary life in Paris and his 1925 trip to Spain with several known personalities.
• Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts acquaintances of the Fitzgeralds in the 1920s.
• Point Counter Point (1928) by Aldous Huxley includes easily detected portraits of Huxley's friends D.H. Lawrence and John Middleton Murry.
• Roman à clef is one of the many dimensions of Orlando: A Biography (1928) by Virginia Woolf.
• Citizen Kane (1941), a movie written by Orson Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, was a fictionalized negative portrayal of the life of William Randolph Hearst. Hearst was offended by the movie and blacklisted Welles.
• The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui, a play written by by Bertolt Brecht in 1941, describes the rise to power of a ruthless gangster in Chicago and his conquest of the nearby town of Cicero, mirroring the rise and early years in power of Adolf Hitler in Germany.
• Mephisto by Klaus Mann. The actor Gustaf Gründgens was so offended by the main character Henrik Hoffgen, that the novel was banned after a libel case.
• A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975) by Anthony Powell is a sequence of twelve novels satirising English cultural and political life in the middle of the 20th century.
• Primary Colors (1996), about Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, published anonymously but later confirmed to have been written by Joe Klein.
• The Devil Wears Prada (2003) about a woman constantly bullied by her boss while working as an intern at a fashion magazine. Although author Lauren Weisberger worked as an intern at Vogue magazine, she denies that the book's antagonist, Miranda Priestly, is modeled after the magazine's editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.
• The Washingtonienne 2005 based on the author Jessica Cutler's sexual affairs as a congressional intern with various men in Washington, D.C.

Jack Kerouac (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969) was an American novelist, writer, poet, artist, and one of the most prominent members of the Beat Generation. ... On the Road is a novel by Jack Kerouac, published by Viking Press in 1957. ... Thomas Love Peacock (October 18, 1785 - January 23, 1866) was an English satirist and author. ... 1785 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... 1866 is a common year starting on Monday. ... 1816 was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828) was an English aristocrat, the only daughter of the Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough and Henrietta Ponsonby, the Countess. ... Lord Byron, English poet Lord Byron (1803), as painted by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, (January 22, 1788 – April 19, 1824) was the most widely read English language poet of his day. ... Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was a 19th century American novelist and short story writer. ... Brook Farm, a transcendentalist Utopian experiment, was put into practice by transcendentalist former Unitarian minister George Ripley at a farm in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, at that time nine miles from Boston. ... A young Emily Dickinson, sometime around 1846-1847, the only known photograph of her. ... Crome Yellow is the first novel by British author Aldous Huxley. ... 1921 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... 1923 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1925 was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley (July 26, 1894 – November 22, 1963) was a British writer who emigrated to the United States. ... The Sun Also Rises is a novel by Ernest Hemingway, following a group of expatriate Americans in Europe during the 1920s. ... Ernest Hemingway, 1950 Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist and short story writer. ... The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... 1925 was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Tender is the Night book cover Tender is the Night is a 1934 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. ... F.Scott Fitzgerald, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1937 Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 - December 21, 1940), was a Jazz Age novelist and short story writer. ... Sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or primarily in North America as the Roaring Twenties. Events and trends Technology John T. Thompson invents Thompson submachine gun, also known as Tommy gun John Logie Baird invents the first working television system (1925) Charles Lindbergh becomes the first person to fly... Point Counter Point, published in 1928, was Aldous Huxleys fourth novel. ... 1928 was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley (July 26, 1894 – November 22, 1963) was a British writer who emigrated to the United States. ... D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 - 2 March 1930) was one of the most important, certainly one of the most controversial, English writers of the 20th century, who wrote novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, and letters. ... John Middleton Murry (August 6, 1889 - 1957) was an English author and writer. ... Orlando is a novel by Virginia Woolf, first published in 1928. ... 1928 was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941) was a British author and feminist. ... Citizen Kane is the first feature film directed by Orson Welles (he had directed two short films previously), and is loosely based on the life of the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and the reclusive aerospace and movie mogul Howard Hughes. ... 1941 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Orson Welles, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1937 George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) is generally considered one of Hollywoods greatest directors, as well as a fine actor, broadcaster and screenwriter. ... Herman Jacob Mankiewicz (November 7, 1897—March 5, 1953) was a Polish-American legendary Hollywood screenwriter. ... William Randolph Hearst (April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper magnate, born in San Francisco, California. ... A blacklist is a list or register of people who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, or mobility. ... The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (original German title: Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui) is a play by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, originally written in 1941. ... Bertolt Brecht (February 10, 1898 – August 14, 1956) was an influential German dramatist, stage director, and poet of the 20th century. ... 1941 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Chicago (officially named the City of Chicago) is the third largest city in the United States (after New York City and Los Angeles), with an official population of 2,896,016, as of the 2000 census. ... Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889–April 30, 1945) was the Führer und Reichskanzler (Leader and Imperial chancellor) of Germany from 1933 to his death. ... A Dance to the Music of Time is a twelve volume roman à clef by Anthony Powell, published between 1951 and 1975. ... 1951 was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... 1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... Anthony Dymoke Powell (December 21, 1905 _ March 28, 2000) is a writer most remembered for his A Dance to the Music of Time duodecalogy published between 1951 and 1975. ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area  - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Religion... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... This page is about the colors. ... 1996 is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... Order: 42nd President Vice President: Al Gore Term of office: January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001 Preceded by: George H. W. Bush Succeeded by: George W. Bush Date of birth: August 19, 1946 Place of birth: Hope, Arkansas First Lady: Hillary Rodham Clinton Political party: Democratic William Jefferson Clinton (born... ... Joe Klein (b. ... The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger, paperback edition The Devil Wears Prada is a 2003 novel by Lauren Weisberger about a young woman who, fresh from college, gets a job working as a personal assistant to a powerful fashion magazine editor that turns increasingly hellish as she struggles to... 2003 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Lauren Weisberger (born 1977) is an American novelist, author of the 2003 bestseller The Devil Wears Prada. ... For other meanings, see vogue. ... Anna Wintour, born 11/3/49 in London, is the Editor_in_Chief of Vogue magazine, a position she has held since 1988. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... Jessica Cutler (born May 18, 1978) is a former congressional intern and journalist who ran a blog called the Washingtonienne concerning her sex life, and the ensuing scandal on Capitol Hill. ...

Other uses

In the season 4 X-Files episode Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man, the recurring villain known as the Cigarette Smoking Man moonlights as author Raul Bloodworth and is published in a sleazy rag called Roman A Clef. The name is ironic in the context, as what he has sent to the magazine is indeed a roman à clef account of the secret conspiracies he has been involved in, but the magazine's editors rewrite it until it is unrecognizable. X-Files intro from first 8 seasons The X-Files was a popular 1990s American science fiction television series created by Chris Carter. ...

See also

• Allegory
• Autobiographical novel
• Literary technique
• List of borderline fictional characters