Institut Ramon LLull

What would occur if we gathered Love, Culture, and Power in a single room?’ wonders the Marquise Delphine de Custine. This question leads her to challenge her married lover, the renowned writer François-René de Chateaubriand, to undertake a voyage like the great lovers of yore. This journey will lead them to the gloomy isle of Saint Helena, to Longwood House where post-Waterloo Napoleon is held captive, as well as to the depths of despair and to the jaws of imminent death.

Actual historical figures mingle with fantastical creatures in this captivating and trepidatious suspense novel written in the Marquise’s diary entries (“Despite what they say, history is not written by the victors; it’s written by writers,” she warns the Great Men who surround her.) In the spring of 1819, Delphine and Chateaubriand set out to prove their love can withstand a great distance and a great adversary yet end up discovering that monsters can come in many guises.