The author of the New York Times bestseller The Time Traveler’s Wife returns with another evocative “novel in pictures,” the much-anticipated follow-up to 2005’s The Three Incestuous Sisters. The Adventuress follows the dreamlike journey of an alchemist’s daughter. After she is kidnapped by a lascivious baron, she turns herself into a moth and flees to the garden of a charming butterfly collector named Napoleon Bonaparte. The story of how the two become lovers, and how their affair ends in tragedy and transcendence, is told through Niffenegger’s spare prose and haunting aquatint etchings. With a stunning and distinctive visual style reminiscent of the work of Edward Gorey, this gothic romance packs the emotional heft of the world’s great fairy tales. It will delight fans of the author’s previous works and enchant an entirely new legion of readers.
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About the Author
Audrey Niffenegger is a visual artist and writer who lives in Chicago. She has been making books by hand since the early 1980s; more recently she published a novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife, which was an international bestseller.
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More About the Author
Audrey Niffenegger is a visual artist and a faculty member at Columbia College in Chicago. In addition to her bestselling debut novel, The Time Traveler's Wife, she is the author of two illustrated novels, The Three Incestuous Sisters and The Adventuress. She lives in Chicago.
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56 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A novel in pictures,
By
This review is from: The Adventuress (Hardcover)
Don't buy The Adventuress hoping to have the same sense of wonderment and awe that you felt when you finished The Time Traveler's Wife. It isn't that sort of book.
The Adventuress is the second of Niffenegger's picture novels (that were mass produced at least. The first being the Three Incestuous Sisters), but it's the first one she wrote. In a footnote at the end of the book, she says it was made between 1983 and 1985 when she was a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. The book is beautifully bound, the pictures are amazing. Some of them I'd be tempted to cut out and frame if it wouldn't ruin the book. In the epilogue, she describes the process it takes to create these images and thanks the people who taught her the technique. The story, itself, isn't much of a story so much as words that take you through the story the pictures tell. The art itself is the story, so if the words she wrote before in her amazingly successful novel The Time Traveler's Wife are what drew you to this story, prepare to be disappointed. But if you want to see inside the mind of an artist, who can write as well as create, I think you'll be impressed. I didn't know what to expect, but knew that I liked her work and this book was a pleasant surprise. The Adventuress is indeed an adventure for those who have never seen the work of a visual artist in which the pictures themselves are the story. It isn't a graphic novel. The words are there to enhance the images, but the pictures themselves are the star. I don't know what to tell you, but to pick it up and take a look. You could read it in 15 minutes at Barnes and Noble and know whether or not you wanted to take the chance and buy it. Myself, I'll probably keep it out as coffee table book, because it would be a shame for her art to be hidden on a bookshelf.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Unique Concept,
This review is from: The Adventuress (Hardcover)
This is Audrey Niffenegger's first book, which she did as a small print run back in the early 80's. It is very unique, beautifully and artfully illustrated, and very imaginative. This style of book is what Niffenegger has been doing for many years, and The Time Traveler's Wife opened the door for her to get these strange illustrated novels on the market.
The story revolves around an alchemist's daughter (who he created) and the adventures of her life. To say any more would spoil the story, the text of which is very brief, sufficed to say that an important historical figure plays a crucial role. The story and illustrations are very much like Edward Gorey. The spine of the hardcover book is made of felt... this is a very beautifully packaged book in every way. At the end it says that Niffenegger is working on a new full length novel. Last year she released Three Incestuous Sisters. Hopefully we'll have a new one to look forward to next year.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I love it - I think,
By wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 500 REVIEWER)
This review is from: The Adventuress (Hardcover)
Niffenegger appears to be publishing her work in reverse order - this offering includes ideas developed from her art-school sketchbooks. Maybe this author's "Time Traveler's Wife" was more autobiographical than she's letting on.
It's not another "Wife," though. It more closely resembles her "Three Incestuous Sisters." Like the "Sisters," it's a Gorey-esque series of images, one per two-page spread, with just a few words on the facing page. And, even more than the "Sisters," it baffles the reader with dream-like transitions that defy normal logic. The imagery is what counts here. It appears to be a sequence of aquatints with line etching, a printmaking technique that looks a little like pen drawing with solid color washes. The un-named heroine of this story is an elfin young woman with short hair and missing shirt. As with Gorey, it's a style that will catch your eye or won't, and a story (I think it's a story) that will catch you imagination or won't. I'm caught, partly because of the charm of the story and art, and partly because my mind can't let go of the mystery and ambiguity in them. -- wiredweird
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