Texts and translations.

Set in prerevolutionary France, The Story of Ernestine tells of the love between an innocent young woman and an aristocrat. Ernestine, German-born and orphaned, is an apprentice painter putting the finishing touches on a portrait when the marquis de Clemengis, elegant and handsome, enters the studio. Recognizing him as the subject of the portrait, she gestures for him to be seated and goes on working, looking back and forth between him and his likeness. The world-weary aristocrat is smitten. Marie Riccoboni shows how her heroine learns to negotiate questions of honor and appearances and to find a precarious balance between economic security and the potentially compromising nature of male generosity. The story raises questions about sexual enlightenment and social prejudice and reexamines the links of money, reputation, and marriageability that preoccupied eighteenth-century writers.

"Greatly influenced by writers ranging from Dickens and Proust to Woolf and Colette, Anna Banti was a prominent figure on the Italian literary scene from the 1940s until her death in 1985. The five tales in "The Signorina" and Other Stories display her talent across many genres - fiction, science fiction, historical fiction, mystery.". "Banti's stories portray the ageless conflict between the expectations of society and the aspirations of the individual. In "Uncertain Vocations," the young Ofelia becomes a pianist after her marriage prospects fail, but self-doubt turns her success into miserable mediocrity. In the futuristic "The Women Are Dying," men acquire a new evolutionary ability; women, lacking that ability, are consigned to the status of an inferior race. "Joveta of Betania," set in the time of the Crusades, follows the daughter of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem as she escapes to a life of seclusion as an abbess - a life that becomes for her a source of proud freedom and deep bitterness. In "The Sailing Ships," a young boy creates an imaginary world from an uncertain childhood memory. "The Signorina" tells of a young woman who eventually finds herself, as a writer."--BOOK JACKET.

De Dea Syria (Greek: Περὶ τῆς Συρίης Θεοῦ, "Concerning the Syrian Goddess") is the conventional Latin title of a Greek treatise of the 2nd century AD, which describes religious cults practiced at the temple of Hierapolis Bambyce, now Manbij, in Syria. The work is written in a Herodotean-style of Ionic Greek, and has been traditionally ascribed to the Hellenized Syrian essayist Lucian of Samosata. De Dea Syria describes the worship as being of a phallic character, with votaries offering little male figures of wood and bronze. There were also huge phalli set up like obelisks before the temple, which were ceremoniously climbed once a year and decorated. The treatise begins with a re-telling of the Atrahasis flood myth where floodwaters are drained through a small cleft in the rock under the temple.

Although written a century ago, the sixteen stories by Emilia Pardo Bazan collected in this volume are strikingly relevant to contemporary concerns. Noted for narrative complexity, stylistic variety, and feminist themes, Pardo Bazan's stories explore many aspects of the relationships between men and women. Both outspoken and witty, melancholy and humorous, these stories will interest general readers as well as students and scholars of Spanish literature.

"First published in Switzerland in 1892, finally printed in Russia in 1906, and never before translated into English, Nihilist Girl is the coming-of-age story of Vera Barantsova, a young aristocrat who longs to devote her life to a cause. Her privileged world is radically changed by Alexander I's emancipation of the serfs. Vera first hopes to follow in the footsteps of Christian martyrs, but a neighboring landowner - a liberal professor fired from his position at Saint Petersburg University and exiled to his estate - opens her eyes to the injustice in Russia." "A blend of social commentary and psychological observation, Nihilist Girl depicts the clash between a generation of youth who find their lives caught up by political action and a society unwilling to abandon its patriarchal traditions."--BOOK JACKET.