The Manuscript Found in Saragossa

A literary masterpiece by a Polish traveller, aristocratic adventurer, political activist, ethnographer and publisher Alphonse, a young Walloon officer, is travelling to join his regiment in Madrid in 1739. But he soon finds himself mysteriously detained at a highway inn in the strange and varied company of thieves, brigands, cabbalists, noblemen, coquettes and gypsies, whose stories he records over sixty-six days. The resulting manuscript is discovered some forty years later in a sealed casket, from which tales of characters transformed through disguise, magic and illusion, of honour and cowardice, of hauntings and seductions, leap forth to create a vibrant polyphony of human voices. Jan Potocki (1761-1812) used a range of literary styles - gothic, picaresque, adventure, pastoral, erotica - in his novel of stories-within-stories, which, like the Decameron and Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, provides entertainment on an epic scale. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Humor & Entertainment

Potocki, Jan

Humor

Penguin Classics

It is 1739 and Alphonse van Worden, a Walloon officer serving the King of Spain, spends the night in a haunted inn in the Sierra Morena where he is plunged into a series of adventures, by turns mysterious, erotic and nightmarish. Convinced that he is being hunted by the Inquisition, he joins a band of wanderers - including a gypsy chief, a geometer, a cabbalist and the Wandering Jew himself - who travel aimlessly while regaling their companions with a hundred and more stories, and stories within stories, told over the course of sixty-six 'days', each day as disorienting as a thousand and one nights. And this nest of stories frames yet more stories driving the reader ever deeper into a labyrinth of sadism, satanism, the cabbala and other phantoms brought forth by the sleep of eighteenth-century Reason. For as well as being one of the great masterpieces of subversion, The Manuscript Found in Saragossa is also an encyclopedia of the dark side of the European Enlightenment. The Manuscript Found in Saragossa was written in French, probably between 1797 and 1815; this new translation makes the full text available in English for the first time.

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Viking Adult

Tales from the Saragossa Manuscript: Or, Ten Days in the Life of Alphonse Van Worder (Dedalus European Classics)

Short Stories & Anthologies

Hippocrene Books

S a Gothic novel quite an extraordinary piece of writing Czeslaw Milosz a work of magical intricacy which carries the torch of fantasy into our own century The baffled Alphonse is a precursor of the Kafka hero or the automata of the nouveau roman Dawid Coward

TALES FROM SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT (Dedalus European Classics)

Arts & Photography

Dedalus Limited

Voyage Dans Les Steps D'astrakhan Et Du Caucase: Histoire Primitive Des Peuples Qui Ont Habité Anciennement Ces Contrées. Nouveau Périple Du ... De Notes Et Tables, Volume 1 (French Edition)

History

Nabu Press

Manuscrito encontrado en Zaragoza es una novela gótica publicada por Jan Potocki en 1804 y 1805, adaptada al cine por el director polaco Wojciech Has en 1965. Construida según la técnica del relato enmarcado, con historias dentro de historias que se ramifican y entremezclan, al modo de Los cuentos de Canterbury, el Decamerón o Las mil y una noches, la obra fue comenzada en 1797 y publicada en dos partes. El autor trabajó en ella hasta completarla poco antes de su suicidio.

Manuscrito encontrado en Zaragoza (Spanish Edition)

Classics

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

This is an extraordinary collection of tales that is sure to appeal to all readers of the weird and supernatural. Written in French by a Polish nobleman and first published, almost secretly, in St. Petersburg in 1804. During the wars in Spain, an officer of the Walloon Guards finds, in a deserted castle in Saragossa, a manuscript of such absorbing interest that he carries it with him on his campaign. Taken prisoner by the Spaniards, he falls into the hands of a Spanish officer who claims that the manuscript belonged to his family. The Spaniard proceeds to dictate to his prisoner, now an honored guest in the officer's house, the remaining stories in this collection.

The Saragossa Manuscript

Olympia Press

Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse de Jean Potocki (French Edition)

J. Corti

Die Abenteuer in der Sierra Morena, oder, Die Handschriften von Saragossa: Roman (German Edition)

Haffmans Verlag

Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie to fantastyczna, pelna przygód i zagadek opowiesc, która zagarnia czytelnika w swój niesamowity, nieco mroczny swiat. Wstepujemy na teren przypominajacy Ksiege tysiaca i jednej nocy: egzotyczna kraine innych kultur, obcych obyczajów, nieznanych obrzedów, wreszcie - magii, która z jednej strony znajduje swe racjonalne wytlumaczenie, z drugiej pozostaje nieustajaca tajemnica. 
Akcja Rekopisu... rozgrywa sie w ciagu 66 dni w hiszpanskiej Andaluzji. [...] Jednak ten, kto szukalby w tej ksiazce obrazu Hiszpanii z czasów Filipa V Burbona, rozczaruje sie srodze. Historia Alfonsa von Wordena, majaca swój poczatek w dolinie Los Hermanom, toczy sie w gruncie rzeczy w przestrzeni basniowej, zawieszajacej prawa czasu i miejsca. 
[...] dla jednych Rekopis... to arcydzielo epoki rozumu, dla innych - typowy tekst preromantyczny, dla jeszcze innych: prekursorska powiesc fantastyczna. 
Powiesc znikad? Byc moze... I na tym polega Twoja szansa, Czytelniku. Bo oto Rekopis... moze stac sie po prostu Twoja Ulubiona Powiescia.\nBogumila Kaniewska

Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie (Polish Edition)

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