Princess Napraxine

by Ouida

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

428 pages, Hardcover

First published June 25, 2007

About the author

Ouida was the pen name of the English novelist Maria Louise Ramé (although she preferred to be known as Marie Louise de la Ramée).

During her career, she wrote more than 40 novels, children's books and collections of short stories and essays. She was an animal rights activist and animal rescuer, and at times owned as many as thirty dogs. For many years she lived in London, but about 1874 she went to Italy, where she died.

Ouida's work went through several phases during her career. In her early period, her novels were a hybrid of the sensationalism of the 1860s and the proto-adventure novels dubbed "muscular fiction" that were emerging in part as a romanticization of imperial expansion. Later her work was more along the lines of historical romance, though she never stopped comment on contemporary society. She also wrote several stories for children. One of her most famous novels, Under Two Flags, described the British in Algeria in the most extravagant of terms, while nonetheless also expressing sympathy for the French—with whom Ouida deeply identified—and, to some extent, the Arabs. This book went on to be staged in plays, and subsequently to be turned into at least three movies, transitioning Ouida in the 20th century.

Jack London cites her novel Signa, which describes an unschooled Italian peasant child who achieves fame as an opera composer, and which he read at age eight, as one of the eight reasons for his literary success.

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This makes my first real peek into the Gothic genre, not including Blixen, and itself plays with the formula - so my review won't have much of a footing outside of my own experience with it.

The story is essentially a love triangle between an extremely rich but disenchanted banking heir, his obsession - the emotionally distant princess Nadège Napraxine who without effort draws men toward her, then watches them destroy themselves for her; and the ingenue caught in the middle, with noble blood but left destitute and destined for the convent.

It is primarily the interaction between these characters, and the skill of the author in describing the scenes (abounding in idyllic landscapes or descriptions the most excessive and lavish architecture of the period), that kept my interest running throughout the whole book. It was especially my naivete of the Gothic formula that kept me from predicting what would happen that much more, I believe. This is not my own idea, but on reading it I definitely experienced it while reading - the way that the powerful male lead, normally the strict active force or antagonist, is himself rendered vulnerable by Napraxine in the same way the innocent Yseulte is. Only Yseulte is blameless, but her helplessness and complete passivity is poked at in the book as she (fails to) spar with the princess. It's these little ways in which the book avoids being tied to convention made things more tense, for me.

There are further elements in the book that make it seem precocious for its time - it seemed to have been a part of a long-running discussion by the author about the role of women in a time where society was quickly changing, and its conclusion is as vague as its ending. As a story alone, I would recommend it.