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Effi Briest
Effi Briest
Nov 27, 2025 2:09 AM

Author:Theodor Fontane,Helen Chambers,Helen Chambers,Helen Chambers,Hugh Rorrison

Effi Briest

Unworldly young Effi Briest is married off to Baron von Innstetten, an austere and ambitious civil servant twice her age, who has little time for his new wife. Isolated and bored, Effi finds comfort and distraction in a brief liaison with Major Crampas, a married man with a dangerous reputation. But years later, when Effi has almost forgotten her affair, the secret returns to haunt her, with fatal consequences. Considered to be Fontane's greatest novel, Effi Briest is a humane, unsentimental portrait of a young woman torn between her duties as a wife and mother and the instincts of her heart.

Reviews

Beautiful and compelling

—— Daily Mail

Dreamy and beautifully written... Reading it will take you into a different world altogether

—— Marie Claire

A deliciously comic novel

—— The Times

Imagine if Romeo and Juliet had been made to stretch out their passion for 18 years, without consummating their love. Now imagine them in China during the crazy bureaucracy of Mao's Cultural Revolution, unable to talk in private let alone kiss...the insights into Chinese culture and the complexities of human longing are beautiful and compelling

—— Daily Mail

A classic folktale...an extraordinary novel

—— Independent
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