Marie Grubbe: Seventeenth Century Interiors (Dedalus European Classics)

Marie Grubbe is loosely based on the true story of a Danish noble woman of the same name.

A wealthy heiress she married the illegitimate son of Frederik The Third of Denmark and Norway. The relationship was unhappy and violent, and, after she had had several affairs, her husband divorced her allowing her to keep her substantial dowry. For the next two years, Marie Grubbe travelled around Europe with her brother-in-law and lover spending the fortune her mother had left her. On her return her father married her to a local nobleman but this relationship too was unhappy. At the age of forty-six, she finally met the man who was going to be her companion for the rest of her life: a coachman more than twenty years her junior.

A wonderful historical novel and one of the jewels of Danish 19-th century fiction