Winter's Tales

Description

After the huge success of her autobiography, Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen returned to a European setting in these exquisite, rapturous tales of rebirth and redemption. Beginning with a sailor-boy's bold progression to manhood, the stories are full of longing, a theme often mirrored in the desire to escape to sea, as in 'the Young Man with the Carnation' and 'Peter and Rosa'. This collection also includes 'Sorrow-Acre', a modern rendition of a folk-tale in which old ideals clash with the new order, and is considered by many to be one of her finest stories. Full of psychological insights, these luminous tales reveal the mystery and unexpectedness of human behaviour.

ISAK DINESEN was the pen-name of Karen Blixen, who was born in Rungsted, Denmark in 1885. After studying art at Copenhagen, Paris and Rome, she married her cousin, Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke, in 1914. Together they went to Kenya to manage a coffee plantation. After their divorce in 1921, she continued to run the plantation until a collapse in the coffee market forced her back to Denmark in 1931. Although she had written occasional contributions to Danish periodicals since 1905 (under the nom de plume of Osceola), her real debut took place in 1934 with the publication of Seven Gothic Tales, written in English under her pen-name. Out of Africa (1937) is an autobiographical account of the years she spent in Kenya. Most of her subsequent books were published in English and Danish simultaneously, including Winter's Tales (1942) and The Angelic Avengers (1946), under the name of Pierre Andrezol. Among her other collections of stories are Last Tales (1957), Anecdotes of Destiny (1958), Shadows on the Grass (1960) and Ehrengard (1963). All of these books are published by Penguin. Baroness Blixen died in Rungsted in 1962.