Carmen and Other Stories (The World's Classics)

Mérimée, Prosper; Jotcham, Nicholas (Tr.)

ISBN 10: 019282242X / ISBN 13: 9780192822420

Published by Oxford University Press, United Kingdom, 1989

About this Item

VG+. 1st Printing of the 1989 World's Classics Soft Cover Edition thus, translated, with introduction and notes, by Nicholas Jotcham. Book is straight, square, mildly and uniformly age toned, tightly and evenly bound and free of markings, blemishes and gutter creasing. Cover is clean and bright, with very gentle bumping to corners, light age toning, sharp joints, straight head, tail, spine, hinges and edges, boldly legible lettering and crisply distinct design and artwork. (Please see Seller images.) ISBN 019282242X. ShiroBooks, independent bookseller, takes pride in accurate descriptions, careful wrapping and safe shipping; please contact ShiroBooks PRIOR TO ORDERING if more information, details or photos are needed.

Seller Inventory # 005856

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Carmen and Other Stories (The World's Classics)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, United Kingdom
• Publication Date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019282242X
• ISBN 13: 9780192822420
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good Plus
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket

About this title

Synopsis

A selection of stories by one of the earliest exponents of the short-story genre, Prosper Merimee (1803-70). His stories are seen to reveal the paradoxical fascination with the cruelty of violence and passion in a man ostensibly urbane and reticent; to an extent they all explore the contrast between primitive and civilized values. "Carmen", based on an anecdote recounted to Merimee by a Spanish countess in 1830, may have introduced the literary incarnation of the "femme fatale", the woman whose aura of mystery and malevolence exerts a fatal charm on the weak and unwary. Apart from the most famous longer tales "Carmen" and "Colomba", this selection includes the shorter stories, regarded by some as his best or most representative work - "Mateo Falcone", "The Storming of the Redoubt", "Tamango", "The Etruscan Vase", "The Game of Backgammon", "The Venus of Ille" and "Lokis". Their subjects range across the tragic enforcement of a Corsican bandit's code of honour, a historical reconstruction of a Franco-Russian battle, illegal slave-trading, overweening, jealous passion underlying a veneer of Parisian civilization, guilty remorse and its consequences, and the seductive and lethal nature of erotic love entwined with apparently supernatural forces.

Review

'there is no doubt that the French-born Merimee was one of the earlier masters of the short story' Cape Times

'A very good edition and a solid translation.' Dr Lance Butler, University of Stirling