Paul and Virginia from the French of J.B.H. De Saint Pierre
Paul and Virginia from the French of J.B.H. De Saint Pierre
Translated by Helen Maria Williams
When it first appeared in 1788, this novel swept through Europe like a fever. Set on the sun-drenched island of Mauritius, it tells the story of two children raised together in idyllic simplicity: Paul, son of a French lady in exile, and Virginia, the orphaned daughter of a nobleman. They grow up among tropical flowers and gentle animals, their friendship deepening into something the world will not allow. When Virginia is sent to France for her education, the separation destroys them both. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre wrote this as an act of rebellion against Parisian society, attacking its cruelty and artificiality through two innocents who cannot survive its corruption. The novel's natural descriptions were startlingly new, its sentiment raw, its influence immense: Wordsworth, Chateaubriand, and the entire Romantic movement traced their lineage back to these pages. It is a product of its age yet timeless in its grief, a book that makes you believe in love and then breaks your heart with the same tender certainty.
