Author: Merimee, Prosper, Brown, Andrew
Classic fiction (pre c 1945)
Published on 31 March 2023 by Alma Books Ltd (Alma Classics) in the United Kingdom as part of 'the Alma Classics 101 Pages' series.
Paperback / softback | 144 pages
127 x 198 x 13 | 142g
When the Basque dragoon Don José meets a Gypsy woman at the factory he is guarding, he is immediately ensnared by her wiles. After she is arrested for injuring a co-worker and he helps her to flee, he is imprisoned and demoted, but she repays him at their next meeting with a day of excess and a night of love. As Carmen continues to exert her spell, José is dragged further and further into a seedy world of smugglers, robbers, fiery passions and uncontrollable jealousy – one that he will find difficult to escape alive.
Carmen, the archetype of the amoral femme fatale, is Prosper Mérimée’s highest creation, and a model for many subsequent literary heroines. First published in 1846, this story of crime and desire – here accompanied by another famous novella by Mérimée, The Venus of Ille – has been adapted into a number of dramatic works, including the famous 1875 opera of the same name by Georges Bizet.