Prague Tales
Neruda, Jan
£6.00
Prague Tales. By Jan Neruda
Translated by Michael Henry Heim
Paperback. Published by Central European University Press, 1996. Approx size: 21.5cm H x 13.5cm W (8 ½”H x 5 ¼”W). 346pp.
‘Prague Tales is a collection of Jan Neruda’s intimate, wry, bitter-sweet stories of life among the inhabitants of the Little Quarter of nineteenth-century Prague. Though Neruda travelled widely, he found his greatest inspiration in the streets of his native city.
The tales range from moving autobiographical Week in a Quiet House and the sharp social observation of A Begger Brought to Ruin, to a richly comic sketch of Czech pub life and the story – worthy of Mark Twain – of four boys trying to bring down Austria. The Three Lilies, an account of a brief, passionate encounter on a stormy night, inspired by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda to adopt that pen name.
These finely turned and varied vignettes established Jan Neruda as the quintessential Czech nineteenth-century realist, the Charles Dickens of Prague becoming ever more aware of itself as a Czech – rather than an Austrian – city. Prague Tales is a classic by a writer whose influence has been acknowledged by generations of Czech writers, including Ivan Klima, who has contributed an introduction to this new translation.’
Very Good. All pages present and intact; No inscriptions or tears; Dust stained top edge; Does not appeat to have been read; Spine uncreased. Excellent condition.
Book condition: Very Good