Excerpt
More than any other nineteenth-century writer, Stendhal was imbued with the spirit of the French Revolution and its Napoleonic aftermath, and this spirit gives
The Charterhouse of Parma, the masterpiece he published in 1839, a freshness and radical originality we normally associate with the great texts of the twentieth century. Remarkable for its detail, its political prescience, and the far-reaching psychological insight with which its characters and their passions are developed, this picture of the intricate intrigues at the court of a small Italian duchy illuminates, through its intense concentration on local events, a whole epoch of European history.
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)