A Peri - a beautiful spirit of the air, exiled from Heaven - lingers weeping at the gate of Eden. She may enter, an angel tells her, if she brings the gift that is dearest to Heaven.
So she wanders the earth in search of it: the last drop of a hero's blood, the dying sigh of a faithful lover, and at last the tear of a repentant sinner - the one offering that unlocks the everlasting gates.
Paradise and the Peri is the best-loved of the four verse tales in Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh (1817), the lush oriental romance that took Europe by storm and gave Robert Schumann his great choral work. This Lightbound Library edition sets the complete poem - the prose story of the Princess Lalla Rookh and her poet Feramorz, framing all four of his tales: The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, Paradise and the Peri, The Fire-Worshippers, and The Light of the Haram.
This is a Lightbound Library edition from Solocosmo Press, fronted by an original cover painting by Jessica von Braun.