Showing results by author "Nikolai Tolstoy - introduction" in All Categories

Summoned from his medical practice in China by a bevy of anxious aunts, Alain Roig returns to his Catalan hometown to discover he has been nominated by family members with vested interests in the ancestral property to prevent an impending marriage between his cold, ascetic cousin Xavier and Madeleine, a quiet, introspective village girl of unusual beauty. As Alain seeks to understand his cousin's complex motivations for wooing the unhappy girl, he is slowly drawn into Xavier's dark crisis of faith, the well-worn pattern of the sleepy Catalan days and the tight circle of village gossip.

Patrick O’Brian is acclaimed as one of the greatest historical novelists of the twentieth century, celebrated throughout the world for his masterful roman fleuve, the Aubrey‒Maturin series. But he was also a prolific writer of short stories, and it is in this form that he first made his mark. Encompassing stories written in his unvarnished youth to tales told by a seasoned traveller, this is the most comprehensive collection of O’Brian’s short fiction ever published. It is a treasure chest, containing more than sixty tales, including rarities, uncollected works, and forgotten jewels.