The Marquise of O

A respectable young
widow and mother of two children, the Marquise of O- finds herself
inexplicably pregnant after being rescued by a Russian officer from the
attentions of his soldiers during the storming of her town’s citadel.
Convinced of her own innocence and wishing to vindicate her own integrity,
the Marquise places an advert in the newspapers, appealing for the father to
come forward and promising to marry him. But will this be enough to quench
her family’s doubts and the derision of the society around her? Will this
help her solve the mystery and urge the perpetrator to acknowledge paternity
of the child?

One of the great classics of German literature, Heinrich von Kleist’s
sexually charged novella is as edgy today as it was when it was first
published in 1808, and is accompanied here by two other celebrated stories,
‘The Earthquake in Chile’ and ‘The Foundling’, showcasing the range of their
author’s narrative abilities and his taste for the ambiguous and the
paradoxical.