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The The Wife of Martin Guerre

The The Wife of Martin Guerre

by Janet Lewis (Author), Kevin Haworth (Introduction)

  • New

    Paperback 2013

    $15.66
Synopsis

In this new edition of Janet Lewis's classic short novel, The Wife of Martin Guerre, Swallow Press executive editor Kevin Haworth writes that Lewis's story is a short novel of astonishing depth and resonance, a sharply drawn historical tale that asks contemporary questions about identity and belonging, about men and women, and about an individual's capacity to act within an inflexible system. Originally published in 1941, The Wife of Martin Guerre has earned the respect and admiration of critics and readers for over sixty years.

Based on a notorious trial in sixteenth-century France, this story of Bertrande de Rols is the first of three novels making up Lewis's Cases of Circumstantial Evidence suite (the other two are The Trial of Soeren Qvist and The Ghost of Monsieur Scarron).

Swallow Press is delighted and honored to offer readers beautiful new editions of all three Cases of Circumstantial Evidence novels, each featuring a new introduction by Kevin Haworth.

$15.66

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 112
 Edition: New
 Publisher: Swallow Press
Published: 25 Sep 2013
ISBN 10: 0804011435
ISBN 13: 9780804011433

Media Reviews
The Wife of Martin Guerre by Janet Lewis is one of the most resonant short novels I can remember. I greatly like two other books she wrote: The Trial of Soren Qvist and The Ghost of Monsieur Scarron. She never got the attention she deserved. - Evan S. Connell, Jr. One of the last century's great novels. - A Commonplace Blog When the literary history of the second millennium is written at the end of the third, in the category of dazzling American short fiction (Janet Lewis's) Wife of Martin Guerre will be regarded as the 20th century's Billy Budd and Janet Lewis will be ranked with Herman Melville. - The New York Times Flaubertian in the elegance of its form and the gravity of its style. - The New Yorker A masterpiece...a short novel that can run with Billy Budd, The Spoils of Poynton, Seize the Day, or any other. - Larry McMurtry, The New York Review of Books Janet Lewis brings the haunting qualities of fable to this novella, based on a legal case that attracted wide attention in 16th-century France and has continued to fascinate down through the years. - Ron Hansen, The Wall Street Journal One of the most significant short novels in English. - Atlantic Monthly
Author Bio
Janet Lewis was a novelist, poet, and short-story writer whose literary career spanned almost the entire twentieth century. The New York Times has praised her novels as some of the 20th century's most vividly imagined and finely wrought literature. Born and educated in Chicago, she lived in California for most of her adult life and taught at both Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley. Her works include The Wife of Martin Guerre (1941), The Trial of Soeren Qvist (1947), The Ghost of Monsieur Scarron (1959), Good-Bye, Son and Other Stories (1946), and Poems Old and New (1982). Kevin Haworth's novel The Discontinuity of Small Things was winner of the Samuel Goldberg Prize for best Jewish fiction and finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Price. He teaches writing at Ohio University and serves as executive editor of Ohio University Press/Swallow Press.