"Ten out of ten to the newly-launched Pushkin Press for including this little gem from 1892 in its list of neglected European classics ... The sexual tension is electric and, in the sudden, exquisite flaming of love, Couperus binds both irony and spiritual redemption"
MAX DAVIDSON Daily Telegraph
"(T)his book is frail, delicate, mystical, written with a light, yet firm touch which saves it from falling into those twin perils of absurdity and pathos which hedge it around. (...) It is a delicate, frail, poetic, and somewhat unreal love story of the transcendental type, told with a great deal of skill"
The New York Times Review of Books
ABOUT THE BOOK
A YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL widow falls in love with a notorious womanizer. The tranquil setting in turn-of-the-century Holland belies the degree of suffering and pain that Cecile, the young widow, has to endure in the midst of polite society. Ecstasy is the moving story of thwarted and unspoken passion as Cecile abandons herself to love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LOUIS COUPERUS was born in the Hague in 1863. Following his family's move to the the Dutch East Indies, he was educated in Jakarta. In 1878 the family returned to The Hague, where Couperus continued his studies. He was married in 1891. His novel Ecstasy was first published a year later and Psyche followed in 1898; both available from Pushkin Press. Couperus and his wife eventually settled in Nice until 1910, when they travelled extensively in Italy. A renowned wit, raconteur and commentator, Couperus continued to publish critically and commercially successful work until his death from blood poisoning in 1923.
Translated by TEIXTEIRA DE MATTOS and JOHN GRAY
Cover illustration by DUNCAN WARD
ISBN 978 1 901285 02 4 - 160pp
