Resumen
Resumen de Las dos semanas de la princesa Priscila
Para quién es
Readers who love gentle satire, runaway heroines and English village comedy will find a home here, along with anyone fond of witty narrators, odd couples and stories about ideals meeting daily life.
De qué trata este libro
The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight is a comic novel by Elizabeth von Arnim, who died in 1941. It follows a young grand duke's daughter who is tired of palace life and decides to run away to England to live as a plain village girl. The author tells it in a teasing, chatty voice that keeps stepping into the story to comment on luck, duty and human folly.
Priscilla is twenty-one, gentle, red-haired and perfectly trained to say nothing. Her only real friend is the old court librarian, who has fed her ten years of poetry and plain living. When a handsome prince asks for her hand, she decides to flee, and the librarian cannot refuse her. Together they cross Europe in disguise, bound for a thatched cottage in Somerset.
What the book gives you is a sharp, funny picture of what happens when a lofty ideal meets rain, bills, gossip and hunger. Along the way you meet a village full of kind and meddling neighbours. It begins in a castle on a hill, in a small country whose ruler has no idea what his daughter is planning.
En este resumen
- 1A princess who longs to vanishFree
- 2A bicycle ride into the unknown
- 3Across the Channel to Somerset
- 4Winning the cottage through charm and temper
- 5Goodness with no brakes
- 6The cottage, the maid and the empty purse
- 7Tussie's fever and a promise she cannot keep
- 8What the story is really about
- 9How the story is told
Idea clave 1 de 9
A princess who longs to vanish
The story opens in Kunitz, the capital of the small Grand Duchy of Lothen-Kunitz, where a sprawling palace stands on a hill above a red-roofed town. Princess Priscilla is the middle daughter of the Grand Duke. Her sisters have married suitable princes. She has done nothing wrong, which is exactly why nobody suspects a thing.
Outwardly she is calm, tall and graceful, with a slightly crooked nose and golden eyelashes. Inwardly she is stifled. Every hour of her day is watched by lackeys and officials, and she is never alone. Her lady-in-waiting, the large and sleepy Countess Irmgard von Disthal, follows her everywhere and dozes whenever there is food to digest.
Her escape has always been the library. The librarian, Herr Fritzing, is a lean scholar who came from a Westphalian farm, spent years in Paris and England, and now rules the ducal books. For ten years he has taught her English through poetry, and he has taught her far more than grammar. He has taught her to prize freedom, plain living and the life of the mind. He even invents a talent for drawing so she can visit him daily.
The lessons have worked too well. At twenty-one Priscilla announces that she means to run away, that she will spend the next twenty-one years at the bottom of the social ladder, and that he must help her. She settles the details herself. They will go to England, live humbly in the countryside, and he will pose as her uncle.
Then events press her. A powerful prince sees her at a public ceremony and wants to marry her, and her delighted father is ready to agree. Fritzing has always preached that a woman who weds without love is lost. The plan, which had been only talk, suddenly needs a date.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Questions about Las dos semanas de la princesa Priscila
What is The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight about?
It follows a grand duke's daughter who runs away from her palace to live as an ordinary village girl in Somerset. She goes with her old librarian, and their plan for a simple life meets many surprises.
Who is Fritzing in The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight?
Fritzing is the ducal librarian and Priscilla's teacher of English literature. He helps her escape, poses as her uncle, and is clever with books but has no talent for lying, money or managing servants.
Why does Priscilla run away?
She finds court life suffocating, with no privacy and endless ceremony, and Fritzing has taught her to admire freedom and plain living. A prince's offer of marriage gives her the push to leave at last.
Is The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight a true story?
No, it is a comic novel by Elizabeth von Arnim. It uses an invented European duchy and an English village, and it plays with the idea of a royal runaway for satire and affection.
Is The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight easy to read?
Yes, in the sense that the language is plain and lively. The chapters are short, the dialogue is quick and funny, and the narrator's friendly asides carry you along through the story.