Traduction

1889 · GW-Castle — New York: P. J. Kennedy 1889 New York: P. J. Kennedy 1889. Early American edition. Hardcover. Publisher's original green cloth gilt spine lettering and decorative stamping. Corners slightly worn; a sound and clean copy. Octavo. "The Castle of Roussillon; Or Quercy in the Sixteenth Century" is a Catholic historical romance set in the French province of Quercy during the sixteenth century at the height of the wars of religion. Eugénie de La Rochère dramatizes conflict between Catholics and Huguenots weaving local legend romance and themes of fidelity under persecution. With its castle setting religious strife and atmosphere of intrigue and danger the novel belongs to the Catholic Gothic-historical tradition popular in the nineteenth century. Eugénie de La Rochère was a French Catholic writer of the nineteenth century known for historical fiction that combined regional history with moral and religious themes. Though little remembered outside Catholic circles her works were valued for their piety sense of place and dramatic storytelling. She was among a group of French Catholic novelists whose writings were widely translated and circulated through the international Catholic press. The translator Mary Anne Madden Sadlier 1820-1903 was one of the most prolific Catholic novelists and translators in North America. Irish-born and later based in Montreal and New York she wrote original novels about the Irish immigrant experience and translated numerous Catholic authors from French making them available to English-speaking readers. Her association with New York's P. J. Kennedy press was long-standing and central to its Catholic publishing program which brought devotional and moral fiction to immigrant Catholic communities. Though not the first American edition this 1885 Kennedy issue is significant as part of New Yorks Catholic publishing network linking Paris Montreal and New York. Copies of La Rochère's works are uncommon in any edition and this Kennedy printing preserves both her historical novel and Sadlier's translation at a time when Catholic presses were actively shaping immigrant literary culture. Hardcover. Near Fine/No Jacket. P. J. Kennedy hardcover