Publisher's Synopsis
Intrigues -of all kinds: military, political, and religious- supply the raw material for Stendhal's novella, The Abbess of Castro. Although the short work was published in the same year (1839) that The Charterhouse of Parma was published, the difference in narrative thrust are different: while the Charterhouse is thoughtful and deliberate, the Abbess is impulsive and light-a sort of early swashbuckler narrative. From the very beginning, readers are thrown into the lifestyle of the nobility, to include their rivalries, jealousies, sieges, power tugs, close escapes, and the machinations of a Machiavellian prince, and his protege, Giulio Branciforte. Much like Cervantes' Don Quixote, the story is framed; that is, it purports to be a translation of early sixteenth century manuscripts about the tragic love affair of Elena de' Campireali and Giulio Branciforte, who lived during the early part of that that century. Our translation breaks up the density of the paragraphs into shorter versions, to entice the contemporary reader -so used to headlines and bullet points- to follow the action closely; all this without harming Stendhal's general style.
