The Abbess of Castro

The Abbess of Castro

by Stendhal
The Abbess of Castro

The Abbess of Castro

by Stendhal

eBook

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Overview

Brigands, convents under siege, a prince who’d do Machiavelli proud . . . This adventurous novella from a writer famous for far longer works is a singular take on love and war in Renaissance Italy. 

Claiming to be translating from sixteenth-century manuscripts, Stendhal tells the story of two doomed young lovers—one the daughter of the wealthiest man in the district, the other a brigand. It’s a genuinely moving tale of impossible love—with plenty of swordfights thrown in—that’s unique in Stendhal’s oeuvre, not least in its portrait of an intelligent woman who, ill-starred in love, turns to worldly power. There’s also some sparkling analysis of the conditions that produced the great art of the Renaissance.

But The Abbess of Castro—first published in the same year as Stendhal’s novel The Charterhouse of Parma—is also characterized by themes that pervade his longer novels: political and familial machinations, a profoundly unsentimental view of war, ambitious individuals undone by passion. 

Never before available as a standalone edition, the novella is a powerful dose of the writer at the peak of his skills.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781612193212
Publisher: Melville House Publishing
Publication date: 08/12/2014
Series: Art of the Novella Series
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 144
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

HENRI MARIE BEYLE (1783-1842) had a post in the Ministry of War and followed Napoleon's campaigns before retiring to Italy. There as 'Stendhal', he began writing on art, music and travel. He later wrote novels, literary criticism, and various biographical and autobiographical works.
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