Baron Bruno; Or, The Unbelieving Philosopher, and Other Fairy Stories

In the enchanted kingdom of Rumpel Stiltzein, Baron Bruno serves as Prime Minister: a brilliant philosopher whose rational mind refuses to believe in immortality. Alone despite his intellectual gifts, he spends his nights gazing at the stars he studies, longing for connection that logic cannot provide. Then Alcyone descends from those very stars a heavenly muse sent to challenge his skepticism and teach him the true nature of love. Their encounter forces Bruno to confront what he has spent his life denying, as the celestial and the political collide in this oddly moving late-Victorian fairy tale. The collection that follows ventures further into wonder, but the anchor story remains a strange, quiet meditation on why a mind sharp enough to question everything might still ache for something it cannot prove exists. Morgan writes with unexpected tenderness about the loneliness of rationalism and the terrifying vulnerability of belief.