The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rezanov, by Gertrude Atherton

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Title: Rezanov

Author: Gertrude Atherton

Posting Date: February 12, 2010 [EBook #491]
Release Date: April, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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REZANOV

BY

GERTRUDE ATHERTON

With an Introduction by

WILLIAM MARION REEDY

INTRODUCTION

A long list of works Gertrude Atherton has to her credit as a writer.
She is indisputably a woman of genius. Not that her genius is
distinctively feminine, though she is in matters historical a
passionate partisan. Most of the critics who approve her work agree
that in the main she views life with somewhat of the masculine spirit
of liberality. She is as much the realist as one can be who is
saturated with the romance that is California, her birthplace and her
home, if such a true cosmopolite as she can be said to have a home. In
all she has written there is abounding life; her grasp of character is
firm; her style has a warm, glowing plasticity, frequently a rhythm
variously expressive of all the wide range of feeling which a writer
must have to make his or her books living things. She does no less
well in the depiction of men than in the portraiture of women. All
stand out of their vivid environment distinctly and they are all
personalities of power--even, occasionally, of "that strong power
called weakness." And they all wear something of a glory imparted to
them by the sympathy of their creator and interpreter. High upon any
roster of our best American writers we must enroll the name of Mrs.
Atherton.

Of all her books I like best this "Rezanov," though I have not found
many to agree with me. It is not so pretentious as others more
frequently commended. It is a simple story, almost one might say an
incident or an anecdote. It is not literally sophisticated. For me
that is its unfailing charm. I find in it not a little of the strange,
primeval quality that makes me think of "Aucassin and Nicolette." For
it is not so much a novel as an historical idyl, not to be read without
a pe