This novel is based upon the true story of Mariana Alcoforado, sent to a convent during Portugal's revolt against Spain in the seventeenth century, where she conducts an all-consuming love affair with a French cavalry officer. After being abandoned, she writes him a series of passionate love letters--translated and included here--that become famous throughout Europe during her lifetime, and thereafter. Artists from the poet Rilke and the novelist Stendhal to the painters Matisse and Modigliani have made her one of the world's great romantic icons.
