Seven Gothic Taleshas established itself as a modern classic. As William Rose Benet wrote in the Saturday Review of Literature when the book was first published, this is "a book of unique atmosphere and scenes indelibly delineated, a book bringing the psychological insight of a Henry James to the material of a Northern Boccaccio, a book of extraordinary fantasy that yet takes us intimately into a vivid variety of human lives."
The collection of seven short stories include "The Deluge at Norderney," "The Old Chevalier," "The Monkey" and "The Roads Round Pisa." Rounding out the collection are "The Supper at Elsinore," "The Dreamers" and "The Poet."
Editorial Reviews
"Enter a deliciously described world of sharply painted, dramatically costumed heroes and heroines posing, with many a spectacular gesture and eloquent aria, in magnificent landscapes maintained by invisible hands as a kind of huge stage set....Isak Dinesen's leisurely and ornate anecdotes, which she furnishes with just enough historical touches to make the stage firm, have something in them of the visionary and the artificial, they are not escapist. From the sweeping flood of the first story to the casual and savage murder of the last, they face pain and loss with the brisk familiarity of one who has amply known both, and force us to face them, too. Far from hollow and devoid of a moral, the tales insistently strive to inculcate a moral stance....Intoxication figures frequently in Isak Dinesen's work, and mercilessness was part of the storyteller's art as she construed it: the story must pursue its end without undue compassion for its characters. Combat lies closer than compassion to the secret of Seven Gothic Tales, and its exhilaration is their contagious mood." --John Updike, New York Times
About the Author
Isak Dinesen is the pseudonym of Karen Blixen, born in Denmark in 1885. After her marriage in 1914 to Baren Bror Blixen, she and her husband lived in British East Africa, where they owned a coffee plantation. She divorced from her husband in 1921 but continued to manage the plantation for another ten years, until the collapse of the coffee market forced her to sell the property and return to Denmark in 1931. There she began to write in English under the nom de plume Isak Dinesen. Her first book, and literary success, was Seven Gothic Tales. It was followed by Out of Africa, The Angelic Avengers (written under the pseudonym Pierre Andrézel), Winter's Tales, Last Tales, Anecdotes of Destiny, Shadows on the Grass, and Ehrengard. She died in 1962.
