" I]t belongs with her very best novels ... marks a new departure in its bold and delicate exploration of human psychology and in its economy of style." - Robert Lee Wolff
Pregnant and unmarried, seventeen-year-old Irene Thelliston has been sent home from India in disgrace to live with her aunt in rural Ireland. Only one person knows her secret: Lady Mary Harling, a fellow passenger on her sea voyage, who pities her misfortunes and solemnly swears never to divulge her secret. Years later, to Lady Mary's horror, the beautiful Irene arrives in London and becomes engaged to her son Conrad,...

This bilingual collection of essays (in English and French) looks at entomology and representations of insects from a scientific, historical, philosophical, literary and artistic viewpoint.
The contributions illustrate the various responses to the insect world that have developed over centuries, concentrating upon the alien qualities of insects a radical otherness that has provoked admiration and fear, or contributed to the debates over humans superiority over animals, especially during the evolutionary theory controversy, or in today s ecological debates. Insects not only helped shape...