The Portrait Of Zelide
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:
Condition: Good to fair. Jacket: No dust jacket. Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
Few biographical portraits capture the restless brilliance of an 18th-century mind with the precision and elegance that Geoffrey Scott brings to his subject. The Portrait of Zelide chronicles the life of Isabelle de Charrière — the Dutch-born writer known as Zélide — a woman of fierce intellect, passionate feeling, and relentless independence who moved through the salons of Europe leaving an indelible impression on all who encountered her, including the young James Boswell. Scott's prose is crystalline and assured, weaving together the intimate textures of biography with the sweeping currents of Enlightenment Europe. Recognised as a masterwork of literary biography, the book presents Zélide not merely as a historical curiosity but as a thoroughly modern sensibility trapped in the conventions of her age — a tension that gives the narrative its enduring charge. Scott, himself a figure of considerable literary distinction, illustrates with quiet authority how one woman's refusal to be contained continues to resonate across the centuries, leaving the reader to wonder what Zélide might have achieved had the world been ready for her.
Author: Geoffrey Scott
Format: Hardback
Published: 1925, Constable & Co.
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Jacket: No dust jacket. Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
Few biographical portraits capture the restless brilliance of an 18th-century mind with the precision and elegance that Geoffrey Scott brings to his subject. The Portrait of Zelide chronicles the life of Isabelle de Charrière — the Dutch-born writer known as Zélide — a woman of fierce intellect, passionate feeling, and relentless independence who moved through the salons of Europe leaving an indelible impression on all who encountered her, including the young James Boswell. Scott's prose is crystalline and assured, weaving together the intimate textures of biography with the sweeping currents of Enlightenment Europe. Recognised as a masterwork of literary biography, the book presents Zélide not merely as a historical curiosity but as a thoroughly modern sensibility trapped in the conventions of her age — a tension that gives the narrative its enduring charge. Scott, himself a figure of considerable literary distinction, illustrates with quiet authority how one woman's refusal to be contained continues to resonate across the centuries, leaving the reader to wonder what Zélide might have achieved had the world been ready for her.