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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when the heart refuses restraint, but the world insists on passing judgment?
In The Sisters: Three Novellas, Jakob Wassermann brings together Donna Johanna, Sara Malcolm, and Clarissa Mirabel, each the namesake of a separate story. These women stand at the centre of concentrated studies of strong attachment and the pressure of fate. The tension lies between what a person feels inwardly and what others are willing to understand.
This is not one continuous family story. The novellas invite you to compare separate lives, their differences as well as their shared concerns. Wassermann explores judgment, responsibility, and difficult motives without treating the heart as a reliable guide. Strong feeling can resist restraint, yet it can also narrow a person's sense of what remains possible.
What you’ll discover
- Three lives in conversation Read Donna Johanna, Sara Malcolm, and Clarissa Mirabel as distinct studies that illuminate one another.
- The weight of judgment Explore the distance between private experience and the account that other people accept.
- A heart without certainty Encounter strong feeling as both resistance to restraint and a force that limits possibility.
- Room for difficult motives Stay close to inward desires that sit uneasily beside the judgments imposed from outside.
- The novella's concentrated power Find room for each woman's circumstances while attention stays fixed on a limited struggle.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy historical fiction with a dark, dreamlike edge, portraits of obsessed minds, and stories where love, faith and rumor push ordinary people toward fateful choices.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- One longing can swallow everything
- Johanna refuses love on command
- Jealousy turns love toward death
- Sara searches for a lost happiness
- A golden cup promises another life
- A town builds its own certainty
- Clarissa is pulled into the story
- The storyteller leaves room for judgment
- A vision can become a trap
Who’s who
- Johanna of CastileA dark-eyed Spanish princess who longs for a love that conquers death and cannot accept an ordinary marriage.
- Philip of AustriaHer young, pleasure-loving husband, who flees from the intensity of her love and the court's whispers.
- Jan DalaunesThe one-eyed falconer and poet who stays loyal to Johanna through every hardship.
- Sara MalcolmA London servant named Sara Malcolm who carries a forgotten dream and a longing for something she cannot name.
- Francis RhymerA cheerful young Scot who comes to London for his wedding and carries a golden cup as a gift.
- Clarissa MirabelA restless, romantic widow who is drawn by a rumor into the heart of a notorious murder case.
- Bastide GrammontA proud, nature-loving farmer who rejects all society and is accused of killing his uncle.
- Monsieur JausionThe investigating judge who guides every witness toward the story the crowd wants.
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The Sisters: Three Novellas
by Jakob Wassermann · 1906
A queen drags her dead husband across Europe, a servant girl steals a golden cup, a crowd invents a murder.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“Why is God locked inside his own house?”
In short
What does a person do when one longing swallows everything else? Jakob Wassermann puts that question to three women in three centuries.
The Sisters: Three Novellas at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 45 min2 h 10 min fast, 3 h 15 min slow
- Length
- 39,000 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1906by Jakob Wassermann
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
Johanna is born strange and married young
The first novella follows Johanna, daughter of Queen Isabella of Castile. She is born while heretics burn beneath the palace window. On her body is a mark shaped like a cross ringed with flame. Rumor at court says she cannot bear the sight of fire.
She grows into a silent, dark-eyed child, and the learned call her feeble-minded. At Toledo she watches a pregnant woman burn at the stake and never forgets the cry.
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Details
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- 1906
- Language
- English
- Level
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Cite this edition
Wassermann, Jakob. The Sisters: Three Novellas. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-sisters-three-novellas.
Wassermann, J. (2026). The sisters: Three novellas. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-sisters-three-novellas (Original work published 1906)
Wassermann, Jakob. The Sisters: Three Novellas. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-sisters-three-novellas.
@book{wassermann2026sisters,
author = {Wassermann, Jakob},
title = {The Sisters: Three Novellas},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-sisters-three-novellas},
note = {First published 1906}
}
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What is The Sisters by Jakob Wassermann about?
It gathers three novellas about women ruled by a single longing. Johanna of Castile cannot let her husband go, Sara Malcolm follows a dream into a crime, and Clarissa Mirabel is drawn into a famous murder case.
Are the three stories connected?
They share no characters, but they share a spirit. Each heroine is obsessed with a vision, each is misread by those around her, and each moves through a world shaped by fate, which is why they are called sisters.
Is Clarissa Mirabel based on a true story?
Yes, it builds on the real murder of the lawyer Fualdes in Rhodez in 1817, a case that stirred France. Wassermann adds an inner life to the people involved while following the main events of the case.
The author
Jakob Wassermann
1873–1934 · German novelist
Jakob Wassermann (1873–1934) was a German novelist born in Fürth, Germany. He lived in Munich, Vienna, and Altaussee, Austria, where he died. His novels include Caspar Hauser (1908), The Goose Man (1915), and The Maurizius Case (1928). He also wrote short fiction and essays.
“Why is God locked inside his own house?”
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