The Manuscript Found in Saragossa

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Authors: Jan Potocki

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THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA

âA Polish classicâ¦ constructed like a Chinese box of talesâ¦ It
reads like the most brilliant modern novel' â Salman Rushdie in
the
Guardian

âOne of the great masterpieces of European literatureâ¦ this new
translation offers us the work as a whole in English for the first time,
in the dizzyingly elaborate form envisioned by the author's
extraordinary imagination' â Larry Wolff in
The New York Times
Book Review

âThe translation by Ian Maclean is crisp, lucid and unfussyâ¦ A
beautiful volume, underlining Potocki's forgotten masterpiece as a
work of real substance' â James Woodall in
The Times

âA picaresque ramble through Islam and the inquisitionâ¦ This is
the stuff of reading on a grand scale, fiction of enduring splendour'
â David Hughes in the
Mail on Sunday

âImpossible to put down' - Katherine A. Powers in the
Boston Globe

âA bravura translationâ¦ the 100 or so stories told over 66 “Days”
are fantastic, ghostly, erotic, comic, ghoulish, philosophical and
Munchausenly tall' - David Coward in the
Sunday Telegraph

âThis volume is excellent value, two dozen fresh and ingenious tales
for the price of a novel' - Julian Duplain in the
Times
Literary Supplement

âAt its most magical
The Manuscript Found in Saragossa
reads like
The
Arabian Nights
, at its most italianate like something from
The
Decameron
â¦ a masterwork of European romanticism' - Michael
Dirda in the
Washington Post Book World

âOne of the strangest books ever written can at last take its rightful
place in world literature' - Kola Krauze in the
Guardian

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND TRANSLATOR

JAN POTOCKI
was born in Poland in 1761 into a very great aristocratic family, which owned vast estates. He was educated in Geneva and Lausanne, served twice in the army and spent some time as a novice Knight of Malta. During his lifetime he was an indefatigable traveller and travel-writer, an Egyptologist and pioneering ethnologist, an occultist and an historian of the pre-Slavic peoples. He was a political activist and probably a freemason, although he seems to have espoused a bafflingly wide range of political causes, some of them patriotic. Among his other exploits were an ascent in a balloon over Warsaw with the aeronaut Blanchard and the provision of the first free press in that city.

Potocki was proficient in many different languages, and his extensive travels led him through the Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Caucasus and China. He married twice (the first marriage ending in divorce) and had five children: scandalous rumours surrounded both of his marriages. In 1812 he retired to his estates in Poland, suffering from chronic ill health, melancholia and disillusionment. He committed suicide in 1815. Although the exact details of his end are uncertain, the most credible story is that he blew his brains out with a silver bullet, which was modelled from the knob of his sugar-bowl and first blessed by the castle chaplain.

IAN MACLEAN
is Reader in French at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the Queen's College.

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa

JAN POTOCKI

TRANSLATED BY IAN MACLEAN

PENGUIN BOOKS

in memoriam absentium
J. N. M. M. Â Â Â J. W. M. E. M. D. E. M. M. W. B. H.

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Private Bag 102902, NSMC, Auckland, New Zealand

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First modern edition published in French 1989
This translation first published by Viking 1995
Published in Penguin Books 1996
13

The moral right of the translator has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

Contents

Introduction

Translator's Note

A Note on the Geographical Location

Glossary

A Guide to the Stories

THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA

Foreword

The First Day

The story of Emina and her sister Zubeida

The story of the castle of Cassar Gomelez

The Second Day