This sweeping historical romance opens with a warning: Spain's conquest by the Saracens cannot be told as plain fact alone, because its history is woven with myth, poetry, and legend. From that premise emerges a dramatic chronicle of Gothic Spain, where Celtic, Roman, and Gothic inheritances shape a proud, warlike nation whose glory is already shadowed by corruption. King Witiza's reign brings tyranny, religious scandal, disarmament, and political decay, while the young Don Roderick rises from hardship to overthrow him and seize Toledo in a blaze of promise. Roderick's triumph soon darkens into the same suspicion and vengeance that ruined his predecessor. His court glitters with pageantry, yet the kingdom is hollowed out and left vulnerable. Romance enters through the Moorish princess Elyata, rescued near Denia, brought in splendor to Toledo, converted, and married to Roderick in a union of chivalry and religious spectacle. But Count Julian, trusted governor of Ceuta, becomes the hidden force of betrayal that leads to Spain's catastrophic defeat by Taric. The legend closes in mourning, with Roderick remembered as the last king of the Goths, and with Toledo's caves and buried mysteries preserving the haunted grandeur of Spain's ancient past. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.

À propos de l'auteur

Irving, Washington

Washington Irving was one of the first great American men of letters, born in New York City in 1783 into a prosperous merchant family and shaped by a restless curiosity that led him from law into writing, travel, and public service. After early success as a satirist and essayist, he spent many years in Europe and later worked as a diplomat in Spain, experiences that deeply enriched his imagination and gave his prose a cosmopolitan polish unusual for his era. He became widely admired for blending history, folklore, humor, and romance into elegant narratives that helped establish a distinctive American literary voice while also drawing richly on European traditions. His most enduring achievement lies in the graceful, atmospheric way he brought old stories to life, especially in his tales of Dutch New York, frontier life, and the legends and histories of Spain, where he turned the past into something vivid, human, and emotionally resonant. Irving’s work often explores memory, national identity, cultural inheritance, and the power of storytelling to preserve vanished worlds, themes that still feel relevant in an age concerned with history, place, and how stories shape the way communities understand themselves. He remains significant as a bridge between the old world and the new, and as a writer whose wit, charm, and narrative imagination helped define the possibilities of American literature. Readers who enjoy richly told historical tales, atmospheric prose, folklore, and gentle satire will find Washington Irving especially rewarding.