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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when private longing meets the small, firm rules of respectable society?
In Tales of Two Countries, Alexander Lange Kielland gathers short stories that look closely at money, manners and desire. Class and rank shape how people behave in company. Love, ambition and longing meet the limits of what society allows, while Kielland keeps a cool eye on the comfortable and the respectable.
Kielland knows the merchant class from the inside, and his attention falls on its habits and social rules. His clear, sharp prose carries a quiet, dry wit. These tales invite you to slow down and notice how tone and shape give a short story its force, rather than looking only for a fast-moving plot.
What you’ll discover
- Society under close scrutiny Look closely at the rules of class and rank that guide everyday social behaviour.
- The pull of desire Explore love, ambition and longing where personal wants meet the demands of restraint.
- Wit with a sharp edge Enjoy dry humour that turns a cool eye on comfort and respectability.
- Money behind the manners Notice how money and merchant habits become subjects for Kielland's close social observation.
- A world in each tale Take each story on its own, with time to savour its shape and tone.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this if you like short stories with a sharp, ironic eye, scenes of Paris and the Norwegian coast, and portraits of how money and romantic ideals shape ordinary lives.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Comfort cannot shut out the past
- Innocence leaves Rebecca without words
- Bright scenes hide confinement and loss
- Quiet love struggles to speak
- Unspoken resentment wears friendship away
- Conscience seeks a comfortable answer
- Love must live beyond ideals
- Romantic pursuit becomes a staged battle
- Reality unsettles our comfortable stories
Who’s who
- RebeccaThe pastor's eighteen-year-old daughter, raised in careful innocence, who has no words for what she feels after the picnic at the Parsonage.
- Max LintzowA lively young merchant from town who charms the pastor's daughter and likes to hide his thoughts behind a cheerful manner.
- CharlesA small, shy and gifted businessman who longs for warm friendship but cannot show his feeling, and who grows bitter at being overlooked.
- AlphonseCharles's handsome, easygoing friend, loved by everyone and careless with money, who leaves the shared firm and lives beyond his means.
- Mrs. WardenA wealthy wife who sets out in her carriage to see poverty for herself and hopes to act according to her conscience.
- SörenA young Sheriff's clerk who marries on a careful calculation and finds that the sorrows of making ends meet are slow and heavy.
- Cousin HansA cheerful, vain student who longs to fall in love and who chases a girl through the streets to the home of a talkative captain.
- Captain SchrappeA retired officer with a military air who walks the ramparts daily and loves to act out the Battle of Waterloo in the sand.
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Tales of Two Countries
The sound of a crowd draws a wealthy carriage passenger back to the closing waters of the Red Sea.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“It is the tears, Monsieur le Comte, that envy and shame, disappointment and remorse have wept over them.”
In short
A carriage creeps toward a grand ball in Paris, and the woman inside hears the crowd jeering in the crudest slang of the city. She understands every word.
Tales of Two Countries at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 35 min2 h 5 min fast, 3 h 5 min slow
- Length
- 37,500 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A rich wife hears the crowd outside
The first tale, Pharaoh, shows how a past can wait behind a comfortable life. A wealthy man notices a fourteen-year-old girl from a poor Paris suburb who makes imitation flowers. He places her in a fine convent school and marries her when she grows up.
She has locked her childhood away like old ribbons in a drawer. Her dreams sometimes bring it back: the cold mornings, and the old woman who shakes her awake and sends her to work. When she wakes, she touches her silk coverlet and feels deep relief.
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Details
- Language
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- Reading time
- 3 h 15 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Kielland, Alexander Lange. Tales of Two Countries. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/tales-of-two-countries.
Kielland, A. L. (2026). Tales of two countries. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/tales-of-two-countries
Kielland, Alexander Lange. Tales of Two Countries. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/tales-of-two-countries.
@book{kielland2026tales,
author = {Kielland, Alexander Lange},
title = {Tales of Two Countries},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/tales-of-two-countries}
}
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What is Tales of Two Countries about?
It is a collection of ten short stories by Alexander Lange Kielland, set in Paris and in Norway. Each tale looks at a person whose comfortable ideas about love, money, charity or friendship meet a harder reality.
What does Pharaoh mean in the first story?
It is the word the heroine whispers to the Count. She remembers the Bible story of Pharaoh's chariots swallowed by the Red Sea, and she sees the crowd outside the carriages as waves that could sweep away the rich.
Who is Blücher in The Battle of Waterloo?
Blücher was the Prussian commander whose arrival helped decide the real Battle of Waterloo. In the story it is also a small stone that Captain Schrappe uses on the sand to mark the Prussian army, which Hans keeps as a memento.
The author
Alexander Lange Kielland
1849–1906 · Norwegian novelist
Alexander Lange Kielland (1849–1906) was a Norwegian novelist, short-story writer and playwright. He was born in Stavanger and died in Bergen. His first collection of short stories appeared in 1879. His novels include Garman and Worse (1880) and Skipper Worse (1882). He also served as mayor of Stavanger.
“It is the tears, Monsieur le Comte, that envy and shame, disappointment and remorse have wept over them.”
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