The Charterhouse of Parma (The Modern Library of the World's Best Books, ML 150)

New York: The Modern Library, 1937. First Thus. Hard Cover. Very Good/No Jacket. First Modern Library edition, Toledano 150.2, binding 7, orange Rockwell Kent endpapers. Lacks jacket. Spine and edges faded, pencil name and date on front endpaper. 1937 Hard Cover. lxxxi, 343 pp. Translated from the French by C.K. Scott Moncrieff, with A Study of M. Beyle by Honore de Balzac. Balzac considered it the most important French novel of his time. Andre Gide later deemed it the greatest of all French novels, and Henry James judged it to be a masterpiece. Now, in a major literary event, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and distinguished translator Richard Howard presents a new rendition of Stendhal's epic tale of romance, adventure, and court intrigue set in early nineteenth-century Italy. The Charterhouse of Parma chronicles the exploits of Fabrizio del Dongo, an ardent young aristocrat who joins Napoleon's army just before the Battle of Waterloo. Yet perhaps the novel's most unforgettable characters are the hero's beautiful aunt, the alluring Duchess of Sanseverina, and her lover, Count Mosca, who plot to further Fabrizio's political career at the treacherous court of Parma in a sweeping story that illuminates an entire epoch of European history.