**We are such volatile creatures that we finally feel the sentiments we
feign.
**
First published in 1816, Adolphe is the story of a young man with all
the privileges and advantages of a noble birth, bt who's still haunted
by the meaninglessness of life. He seeks distraction in the pursuit of
the beautiful, but older and married Ellenore, a fictionalized version
of Madame de Stael. The young Adolphe, inexperienced in love, falls for
her unexpectedly and falters under the burden of the illicit love.
The Art of The Novella Series
Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is
generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a
form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art
Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form
and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented
in book form for the first time.