10 h 13 minAudiobook2 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the countryside that shelters young love cannot protect it from the secrets of a family?
On a country estate in Galicia, Manuela and another young person grow close among woods, fields, plants, and animals. She belongs to the landowning family, but their shared world seems far from questions of rank. Paths offer escape from adult supervision, while affection grows within a household whose past still shapes the present.
Then Gabriel, Manuela’s uncle and the brother of her dead mother, arrives with hopes for his niece’s future. His expectations meet a world of young desire, family obligations, and unequal relationships. In Mother Nature, Emilia Pardo Bazán returns to the estate of The House of Ulloa, asking whether instinct alone can guide a human life.
What you’ll discover
- Love among the fields Follow a growing attachment through a countryside known by touch, movement, and close attention.
- A household with secrets Discover how family history weighs on young people who do not yet fully understand it.
- An uncle’s different hopes Meet Gabriel, whose plans for Manuela bring another understanding of her future into the estate.
- The boundaries of class See how ties between landowners, servants, parents, and children shape the possibilities of love.
- Nature and moral choice Explore the distance between the natural world’s apparent innocence and the obligations of human lives.
Who will love it
For readers who love country-house fiction, complicated family relationships, and love stories shaped by class and faith, with family secrets rooted in the Galician countryside.
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Read and hear Mother Nature in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Mother Nature
by Emilia Pardo Bazán · 1887
On a Galician estate, Manuela and Perucho’s young love collides with family secrets, social rank, and adult plans.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
On a rural estate in Galicia, two young people grow close amid woods, fields, and the daily life of the countryside. Manuela belongs to the landowning family. Perucho grows up within the estate’s household but occupies a different social position. Their shared surroundings bring them together more easily than the distinctions of birth and status would allow elsewhere.
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What is Mother Nature by Emilia Pardo Bazán about?
Mother Nature follows the attachment between Manuela and Perucho on a rural Galician estate. The arrival of Manuela’s uncle Gabriel brings their relationship into conflict with adult plans, family history, social rank, and religious ideas about how people should live.
Is Mother Nature a sequel to The House of Ulloa?
Yes. Mother Nature returns to the estate and family of The House of Ulloa, focusing on a younger generation. Reading the earlier novel first gives added weight to the household’s history and to the responsibilities that adults have passed on to their children.
What does nature mean in Mother Nature?
Nature is both the young people’s living environment and a source of powerful impulses. Pardo Bazán questions the belief that natural feeling must be morally right. The landscape supports their intimacy, but it cannot explain the human history that surrounds them.
The author
Emilia Pardo Bazán
1851–1921 · Spanish novelist and essayist
Emilia Pardo Bazán was a Spanish novelist, short-story writer and editor. She was born in A Coruña in 1851 and died in Madrid in 1921. She wrote The House of Ulloa, published in 1886, and Mother Nature, published in 1887. She lived in Galicia and Madrid.
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