Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
I want to read the book!
All characters reduced
The Elective Affinities - cover

The Elective Affinities

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Translator James Anthony Froude, R. Dillon Boylan

Publisher: Good Press

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

Elective Affinities, also translated under the title Kindred by Choice, is the third novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1809. The title is taken from a scientific term once used to describe the tendency of chemical species to combine with certain substances or species in preference to others. The novel is based on the metaphor of human passions being governed or regulated by the laws of chemical affinity, and examines whether or not the science and laws of chemistry undermine or uphold the institution of marriage, as well as other human social relations. The story is situated around the city of Weimar. Goethe's main characters are Eduard and Charlotte, an aristocratic couple both in their second marriage, enjoying an idyllic but semi-dull life on the grounds of their rural estate. They invite the Captain, Eduard's childhood friend, and Ottilie, the beautiful, orphaned, coming-of-age niece of Charlotte, to live with them...
Available since: 12/03/2023.
Print length: 263 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • Journey to a Star - cover

    Journey to a Star

    Barbara Cartland

    • 0
    • 6
    • 0 
    The dashing Marquis of Oakenshaw is asked by the Foreign Secretary to visit Siam to reassure the King who has been upset by Britain and France quarrelling over the frontiers.
Wealthy, handsome and a confirmed bachelor, the Marquis asks several friends to accompany him on his yacht to stave off the boredom of the long journey, including the latest Social Beauty – the recently widowed Lady Bradwell.
At the last moment, Lady Bradwell, having accepted excitedly, finds herself without a lady’s maid. Her cousin Tarina, also very beautiful but extremely poor, agrees to come with her under a disguised name.
How Tarina learns for the first time of the intrigues and temptations of Society but how she also lifts her eyes to the stars is told in this romance novel by Barbara Cartland.
    Show book
  • The Love Collection Volume One - cover

    The Love Collection Volume One

    Barbara Cartland

    • 0
    • 5
    • 0 
    4 books for the price of 1 Anthology containing:
 
Elizabethan LoverThe Little PretenderA Ghost in Monte CarloA Duel of HeartsThe Saint and the Sinner
    Show book
  • Never Laugh at love - cover

    Never Laugh at love

    Barbara Cartland

    • 1
    • 11
    • 0 
    Anthea Forthingdale and her sisters Thais, Chloe and Phebe have all been named after famous poems.
All very beautiful, after their father’s death at Waterloo the girls and their lovely mother, Christobel, are alone and isolated, living in poverty in a small Yorkshire village.
Struggling for money and appropriate suitors for her daughter, In May 1819 Lady Forthingdale writes to an old friend, the Countess of Sheldon in London and asks if she will have her Godchild Anthea to stay for the rest of the London Season. The Countess is delighted to have Anthea as her guest because otherwise her husband wishes her to leave for the country.
How Anthea meets the handsome Duke of Axminster in her Godmother’s house, how he appears bored and contemptuous with her when they dance at Almack’s, how Anthea caricatures the Duke with far-reaching and dramatic results and how she learns never to laugh at love, is told in this 182nd book by Barbara Cartland.
Published 1976
    Show book
  • The wrong duchess - cover

    The wrong duchess

    Barbara Cartland

    • 0
    • 13
    • 0 
    The illegitimate child of runaway lovers, lovely young Areta is condemned after her parents’ to life in the shadow of her beloved and equally beautiful cousin Lady Millicent… Despised by her aunt and uncle as a “bastard child”, she’s fated never to be a débutante like Millicent, never to attend glamorous Society balls… and never to marry…
 
Unless it’s as part of her plan to save Millicent from a cynically arranged marriage to the Duke of Kerncliffe! After all, the two girls have always looked so very much alike – how hard can it be? But even she weaves her web of deceit, Areta dreads what will happen when the Duke discovers he’s married the Wrong Duchess.
    Show book
  • The Notorious Duke - cover

    The Notorious Duke

    Deborah Simmons

    • 0
    • 1
    • 0 
    This historical regency novella is “an entertaining yarn starring . . . a notorious rake who is challenged to find a woman immune to his charms” (Publishers Weekly). 
 
Pagan Penhurst finds himself at a loose end in Brighton, until a friend wagers he can find a woman who can’t be swayed by Pagan’s notorious charms. 
 
The duke accepts—only to find that his quarry is to be Scholastica Hornsby, a young innocent who wants nothing to do with the infamous rake! She’s far too inexperienced for his usual methods of seduction, but Pagan is determined to win his wager . . .
    Show book
  • Taggart's Woman - cover

    Taggart's Woman

    Carole Mortimer

    • 0
    • 1
    • 0 
    Read this classic romance by USA Today bestselling author Carole Mortimer, now available for the first time in e-book!A marriage for inheritance…To inherit her rightful share of her family business, Heather Danvers is forced to marry her late father’s partner, Daniel Taggart—a rough-edged, self-made millionaire, whose contempt for Heather seems beyond obvious!Yet in the two years since they first met, Heather has fallen for her captivating, yet distant, husband. But Heather doesn’t know that Daniel is hiding a secret—one that, if proved true, could have consequences… Can Heather show Daniel that there’s more to their marriage than convenience?Originally published in 1987
    Show book