In the classic "Babette's Feast," a mysterious Frenchwoman prepares
sumptuous feast for a gathering of religious ascetics and, in doing so,
introduces them to the true essence of grace. In "The Immortal Story," a
miserly old tea-trader living in Canton wishes for power and finds
redemption as he turns an oft-told sailors' tale into reality for a
young man and woman. And in the magnificent novella Ehrengard, Dinesen
tells of the powerful yet restrained rapport between a noble Wagnerian
beauty and rakish artist.
Hauntingly evoked and sensuously realized, the five stories read and
novella collected here and have the hold of "fairy stories read in
childhood . . . of dreams . . . and of our life as dreams." (The New
York Times)