Paul and Virginia - Hardcover

Bernardin De Saint-Pierre

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0720605989 ISBN 13: 9780720605983

Publisher: Dufour Editions, 1982

Synopsis

First published in 1788, this enjoyed phenomenal success in France and throughout the world. Set on the tropical island of Mauritius, it tells the story of the idyllic childhood of two children of French parentage, their growing love and awakening sexual feelings in adolescence, and their subsequent separation and untimely deaths. Combining a thoroughgoing naivety with exoticism, minute observation of nature and substantive criticism of life, Paul and Virginia exercised a far-reaching influence on later Romantic literature. It holds a special place among serious European novels.

About this title

About the Author:

Saint-Pierre was a naturalist and influential social critic as well as a successful author. A military engineer by training, he was instrumental in popularizing pastoral fiction.

From Publishers Weekly:

Naturalist Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814), a disciple of Rousseau, led a hardscrabble life until he published his one novel, Paul et Virginie, in 1788. The book catapulted him into wealth and fame, speeding through dozens of editions on its way to touchstone status for 19th-century lovers of sentimental tales—Flaubert used it as the exemplum of the pulp fiction that cheapened Madame Bovary's young mind. The plot (which also inspired Blue Lagoon) is this: Paul's mother and Virginie's mother, unmarried pregnant strangers when they meet on the tropical French outpost of Mauritius, become bosom friends in adversity. When their children are born, they and their two slaves (who conveniently marry each other), start up a farm on the island. The children are handsome, illiterate, casual about nudity, innocent of the slave labor that sustains them, and close as brother and sister until, inevitably, sexual and romantic feelings begin to muddy the crystal blue waters of their affection. Then Virginie's imperious, aristocratic aunt back in France demands her services, and she must part from Paul for the very first time. The second half of the story (told here in Donovan's elegant 1982 translation) has traditionally been read through a mist of tears. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dufour Editions
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 0720605989
• ISBN 13: 9780720605983
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 142