The Tragic Comedians: A Study In A Well-Known Story
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket - some marks on spine and corners
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner
Few novels dare to dramatise a real-life tragedy of passion and politics with the unflinching honesty that George Meredith brings to The Tragic Comedians. Based on the tumultuous romance between the German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle and the aristocratic Helene von Dönniges, the novel chronicles a doomed love affair set against the charged backdrop of 19th-century European society, where class, ambition, and fatal pride collide with devastating consequences. Meredith presents his protagonists — the brilliant, bombastic Alvan and the captivating, vacillating Clotilde — as figures simultaneously heroic and absurd, rendering their tragedy all the more piercing for its dark comic undertow. A master of psychological realism and intricate prose, Meredith argues through this narrative that human beings are most catastrophically undone not by fate, but by the very qualities that make them extraordinary. This revised and corrected edition, enriched by an introductory note on Ferdinand Lassalle, stands as a testament to Meredith's unique ability to fuse intellectual rigour with emotional intensity — a combination that influenced a generation of writers from Thomas Hardy to Henry James. For readers who believe they understand the nature of love and ambition, The Tragic Comedians offers a reckoning that is impossible to forget.
Author: George Meredith
Format: Hardback
Published: 1892, Ward, Lock, Bowden & Co.
Genre: Classic fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket - some marks on spine and corners
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner
Few novels dare to dramatise a real-life tragedy of passion and politics with the unflinching honesty that George Meredith brings to The Tragic Comedians. Based on the tumultuous romance between the German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle and the aristocratic Helene von Dönniges, the novel chronicles a doomed love affair set against the charged backdrop of 19th-century European society, where class, ambition, and fatal pride collide with devastating consequences. Meredith presents his protagonists — the brilliant, bombastic Alvan and the captivating, vacillating Clotilde — as figures simultaneously heroic and absurd, rendering their tragedy all the more piercing for its dark comic undertow. A master of psychological realism and intricate prose, Meredith argues through this narrative that human beings are most catastrophically undone not by fate, but by the very qualities that make them extraordinary. This revised and corrected edition, enriched by an introductory note on Ferdinand Lassalle, stands as a testament to Meredith's unique ability to fuse intellectual rigour with emotional intensity — a combination that influenced a generation of writers from Thomas Hardy to Henry James. For readers who believe they understand the nature of love and ambition, The Tragic Comedians offers a reckoning that is impossible to forget.