Helena - Softcover

Waugh, Evelyn

3.63

1,625 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014001893X ISBN 13: 9780140018936

Publisher: Penguin Classic, 1963

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Helena is the intelligent, horse-mad daughter of a British chieftain who is thrown into marriage with the man who will one day become the Roman emperor Constantius. Leaving home for lands unknown, she spends her adulthood seeking truth in the religions, mythologies, and philosophies of the declining ancient world, and becomes initiated into Christianity just as it is recognized as the religion of the Roman Empire. "Helena"-a novel that Evelyn Waugh considered to be his favorite, and most ambitious, work-deftly traverses the forces of corruption, treachery, enlightenment, and political intrigue of Imperial Rome as it brings to life an inspiring heroine.

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Book Description:

Helena is the intelligent, horse-mad daughter of a British chieftan who is suddenly betrothed to the warrior who becomes the Roman emperor Constantius. She spends her life seeking truth in the religions, mythologies, and philosophies of the declining ancient world. This she eventually finds in Christianity—and literally in the Cross of Christ.

From the Back Cover:

"In Helena, the play of words and the fireworks, the exquisite descriptions of landscapes, and even the finished portraits of the heroine, her husband, and her son,are always subordinate to the author's broad vision of the mixed anguish and hope with whick the world of Constatntine's time was filled." - New York Herald Tribune

"(Helena) may be read on two levels of appreciation: As bright entertainment, or as deceptively profound commentary. On both levels it's a superlatively well done book." - Chicago Tribune

Evelyn Waugh, author of the internationally acclained bestseller Brideshead Revisited and one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, considered Helena to be perhaps his finest novel. Based on the life of St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine and finder of the true cross, theis spiritual adventure brings to life the political intrigues of ancient Rome and the early years of Christianity.

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