The Abbess of Castro Illustrated

Claiming to be translating from sixteenth-century manuscripts, Stendhal tells the story of two doomed young lovers--one the daughter of the wealthiest man in the district, the other a brigand. It's a genuinely moving tale of impossible love--with plenty of swordfights thrown in--that's unique in Stendhal's oeuvre, not least in its portrait of an intelligent woman who, ill-starred in love, turns to worldly power. There's also some sparkling analysis of the conditions that produced the great art of the Renaissance.