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  <id>272062</id>
  <title><![CDATA[Valperga: Or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca (Oxford World's Classics)]]></title>
  <isbn><![CDATA[0192832891]]></isbn>
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  <description><![CDATA[&quot;The earth is a wide sea,&quot; she cried, &quot;and we its passing bubbles; it is a changeful heaven, and we its smallest and swiftest driven vapours; all changes, all passes  nothing is stable, nothing for one moment the same.&quot;      Valperga (1823), the novel Mary Shelley wrote after Frankenstein, is based on the life of Castruccio Castracani (1281-1328), Prince of Lucca.  A brilliant soldier and cruel tyrant, he successfully commanded Ghibelline forces in Tuscany against the Guelphs, threatening Florence, their stronghold. Woven into the story of this factional conflict are the tragice destinies of two heroines, fictional creations of the author.  Ethanasia, Countess of Valperga (the name of her castle to the north of Lucca), finds herself increasingly torn between loyalty to her Guelph roots and her affection fro Castruccio which began in childhood.  Beatrice, who the author's father, William Godwin, described as 'the jewel of the book', is a heretical Paterin with whom Castruccio falls in love only to abandon. This meticulously researched historical fiction combines a narrative of suspense with a remarkable reconstruction of manners in the Middle Ages.  Set in the period of Dante's lifetime, it is also suffused with a poetic spirit which evokes the beauties of Italy's physical environment and points to the melancholy inevitability of change.  This edition provides a clear account of the circumstances in which Valperga was composed and published.]]></description>
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  <original_publication_year type="integer">1996</original_publication_year>
  <original_title>Valperga: Or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca (Oxford World's Classics)</original_title>
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    <id>11139</id>
        <name><![CDATA[Mary Shelley]]></name>
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      <review>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Valperga: Or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.19</average_rating>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[&quot;The earth is a wide sea,&quot; she cried, &quot;and we its passing bubbles; it is a changeful heaven, and we its smallest and swiftest driven vapours; all changes, all passes  nothing is stable, nothing for one moment the same.&quot;      Valperga (1823), the novel Mary Shelley wrote after Frankenstein, is based on the life of Castruccio Castracani (1281-1328), Prince of Lucca.  A brilliant soldier and cruel tyrant, he successfully commanded Ghibelline forces in Tuscany against the Guelphs, threatening Florence, their stronghold. Woven into the story of this factional conflict are the tragice destinies of two heroines, fictional creations of the author.  Ethanasia, Countess of Valperga (the name of her castle to the north of Lucca), finds herself increasingly torn between loyalty to her Guelph roots and her affection fro Castruccio which began in childhood.  Beatrice, who the author's father, William Godwin, described as 'the jewel of the book', is a heretical Paterin with whom Castruccio falls in love only to abandon. This meticulously researched historical fiction combines a narrative of suspense with a remarkable reconstruction of manners in the Middle Ages.  Set in the period of Dante's lifetime, it is also suffused with a poetic spirit which evokes the beauties of Italy's physical environment and points to the melancholy inevitability of change.  This edition provides a clear account of the circumstances in which Valperga was composed and published.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1996</published>
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    <rating>5</rating>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Dec 13 03:14:39 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Dec 13 03:15:35 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[a firm favorite, no idea where I got it, but I loved it]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/80836351]]></url>
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      <review>
  <id>5969217</id>
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  <text_reviews_count type="integer">4</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Valperga: Or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173312996m/272062.jpg</image_url>
  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173312996s/272062.jpg</small_image_url>
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  <average_rating>3.17</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>23</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[&quot;The earth is a wide sea,&quot; she cried, &quot;and we its passing bubbles; it is a changeful heaven, and we its smallest and swiftest driven vapours; all changes, all passes  nothing is stable, nothing for one moment the same.&quot;      Valperga (1823), the novel Mary Shelley wrote after Frankenstein, is based on the life of Castruccio Castracani (1281-1328), Prince of Lucca.  A brilliant soldier and cruel tyrant, he successfully commanded Ghibelline forces in Tuscany against the Guelphs, threatening Florence, their stronghold. Woven into the story of this factional conflict are the tragice destinies of two heroines, fictional creations of the author.  Ethanasia, Countess of Valperga (the name of her castle to the north of Lucca), finds herself increasingly torn between loyalty to her Guelph roots and her affection fro Castruccio which began in childhood.  Beatrice, who the author's father, William Godwin, described as 'the jewel of the book', is a heretical Paterin with whom Castruccio falls in love only to abandon. This meticulously researched historical fiction combines a narrative of suspense with a remarkable reconstruction of manners in the Middle Ages.  Set in the period of Dante's lifetime, it is also suffused with a poetic spirit which evokes the beauties of Italy's physical environment and points to the melancholy inevitability of change.  This edition provides a clear account of the circumstances in which Valperga was composed and published.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1996</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
  <shelves>
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      </shelves>
  <recommended_for><![CDATA[Everyone]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Sep 09 20:03:54 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Sep 09 20:07:40 -0700 2007</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This is a great book telling about a little known Italian prince. It's got a love, war, politics, magic and truth! Taken from the haroin's real life diaries, this story is told with little infill, but reads like a shakespearean tragedy. We all knew she was tallented, but this is a book that piques m...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5969217">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5969217]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5969217]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>1108685</id>
    <user>
    <id>80407</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Casey]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[El Segundo, CA]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/80407-casey]]></link>
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  <isbn>0192832891</isbn>
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  <text_reviews_count type="integer">4</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Valperga: Or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173312996m/272062.jpg</image_url>
  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173312996s/272062.jpg</small_image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/272062.Valperga_Or_the_Life_and_Adventures_of_Castruccio_Prince_of_Lucca</link>
  <average_rating>3.17</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>23</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[&quot;The earth is a wide sea,&quot; she cried, &quot;and we its passing bubbles; it is a changeful heaven, and we its smallest and swiftest driven vapours; all changes, all passes  nothing is stable, nothing for one moment the same.&quot;      Valperga (1823), the novel Mary Shelley wrote after Frankenstein, is based on the life of Castruccio Castracani (1281-1328), Prince of Lucca.  A brilliant soldier and cruel tyrant, he successfully commanded Ghibelline forces in Tuscany against the Guelphs, threatening Florence, their stronghold. Woven into the story of this factional conflict are the tragice destinies of two heroines, fictional creations of the author.  Ethanasia, Countess of Valperga (the name of her castle to the north of Lucca), finds herself increasingly torn between loyalty to her Guelph roots and her affection fro Castruccio which began in childhood.  Beatrice, who the author's father, William Godwin, described as 'the jewel of the book', is a heretical Paterin with whom Castruccio falls in love only to abandon. This meticulously researched historical fiction combines a narrative of suspense with a remarkable reconstruction of manners in the Middle Ages.  Set in the period of Dante's lifetime, it is also suffused with a poetic spirit which evokes the beauties of Italy's physical environment and points to the melancholy inevitability of change.  This edition provides a clear account of the circumstances in which Valperga was composed and published.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1996</published>
</book>

    <rating>3</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Tue May 08 16:01:51 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Dec 16 19:08:01 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Meh.  Not my favorite.  Thought the women were surprisingly lame.  The writing was pretty, though.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1108685]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1108685]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>1513951</id>
    <user>
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    <name><![CDATA[Lindsay]]></name>
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  <isbn>0192832891</isbn>
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  <text_reviews_count type="integer">4</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Valperga: Or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173312996m/272062.jpg</image_url>
  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173312996s/272062.jpg</small_image_url>
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  <average_rating>3.17</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>23</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[&quot;The earth is a wide sea,&quot; she cried, &quot;and we its passing bubbles; it is a changeful heaven, and we its smallest and swiftest driven vapours; all changes, all passes  nothing is stable, nothing for one moment the same.&quot;      Valperga (1823), the novel Mary Shelley wrote after Frankenstein, is based on the life of Castruccio Castracani (1281-1328), Prince of Lucca.  A brilliant soldier and cruel tyrant, he successfully commanded Ghibelline forces in Tuscany against the Guelphs, threatening Florence, their stronghold. Woven into the story of this factional conflict are the tragice destinies of two heroines, fictional creations of the author.  Ethanasia, Countess of Valperga (the name of her castle to the north of Lucca), finds herself increasingly torn between loyalty to her Guelph roots and her affection fro Castruccio which began in childhood.  Beatrice, who the author's father, William Godwin, described as 'the jewel of the book', is a heretical Paterin with whom Castruccio falls in love only to abandon. This meticulously researched historical fiction combines a narrative of suspense with a remarkable reconstruction of manners in the Middle Ages.  Set in the period of Dante's lifetime, it is also suffused with a poetic spirit which evokes the beauties of Italy's physical environment and points to the melancholy inevitability of change.  This edition provides a clear account of the circumstances in which Valperga was composed and published.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1996</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Tue May 29 09:47:56 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Dec 16 20:18:01 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Need to reread Florentine Histories alongside this one.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1513951]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1513951]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>79900922</id>
    <user>
    <id>2991736</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Michele]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Pittsburg, CA]]></location>
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  <id type="integer">3171067</id>
  <isbn>0195108825</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780195108828</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">0</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Valperga: Or the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca (Women Writers in English, 1350-1850)]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg</image_url>
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  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3171067.Valperga_Or_the_Life_and_Adventures_of_Castruccio_Prince_of_Lucca</link>
  <average_rating>3.00</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>1</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Valperga, published in 1823 and reprinted here for the first time, was Mary Shelley's second novel, the successor to Frankenstein. Set in fourteenth-century Tuscany, the novel shares certain structural features with the popular fictions of Sir Walter Scott, most notably the novel Ivanhoe with its contrasting heroines, but Mary Shelley's work pointedly challenges Scott's model, inverting his masculinist and conservative outlook, foregrounding the lives of its principal women, Euthanasia dei Adimari and Beatrice of Ferrara, and attaching to the figure of Castruccio Castracani, Prince of Lucca, a retrograde authoritarianism and sterile lust for power. Valperga, steeped in Mary Shelley's command of local Italian history and culture, offers the vivid pleasures of accomplished historical fiction while at the same time representing in the clash between Castruccio and Euthanasia a struggle between autocracy and liberal democracy that speaks directly to the contemporary political tensions of post-Napoleonic Europe. Timed for Mary Shelley's bicentennial and superbly introduced by Stuart Curran, this exciting new edition makes available a bold yet little-known work by one of the finest minds in English letters.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1996</published>
</book>

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  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Fri Dec 04 13:55:53 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Fri Dec 04 13:55:53 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79900922]]></url>
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</review>
      <review>
  <id>79036102</id>
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    <id>2560162</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Emma]]></name>
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  <text_reviews_count type="integer">4</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Valperga: Or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.17</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>23</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[&quot;The earth is a wide sea,&quot; she cried, &quot;and we its passing bubbles; it is a changeful heaven, and we its smallest and swiftest driven vapours; all changes, all passes  nothing is stable, nothing for one moment the same.&quot;      Valperga (1823), the novel Mary Shelley wrote after Frankenstein, is based on the life of Castruccio Castracani (1281-1328), Prince of Lucca.  A brilliant soldier and cruel tyrant, he successfully commanded Ghibelline forces in Tuscany against the Guelphs, threatening Florence, their stronghold. Woven into the story of this factional conflict are the tragice destinies of two heroines, fictional creations of the author.  Ethanasia, Countess of Valperga (the name of her castle to the north of Lucca), finds herself increasingly torn between loyalty to her Guelph roots and her affection fro Castruccio which began in childhood.  Beatrice, who the author's father, William Godwin, described as 'the jewel of the book', is a heretical Paterin with whom Castruccio falls in love only to abandon. This meticulously researched historical fiction combines a narrative of suspense with a remarkable reconstruction of manners in the Middle Ages.  Set in the period of Dante's lifetime, it is also suffused with a poetic spirit which evokes the beauties of Italy's physical environment and points to the melancholy inevitability of change.  This edition provides a clear account of the circumstances in which Valperga was composed and published.]]>
  </description>
  <published>1996</published>
</book>

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  <date_added>Thu Nov 26 06:04:35 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Nov 26 06:04:35 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79036102]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79036102]]></link>
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      <review>
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