This autobiographical novel of a married woman’s passion for a younger man is the first translation into English of a landmark text. Originally published in 1538, The Torments of Love tells a colorful tale of adulterous love and romantic adventure from a woman's point of view.

The novel tells the story of the ill-starred love affair of the heroine, Hélisenne, and her paramour, Guenelic. The first part relates the tale of Hélisenne's happy marriage and her sudden adulterous desire for Guenelic, a desire so overwhelming that her husband, in desperation, imprisons her in a tower. Hélisenne writes The Torments of Love as a missive to her lover, hoping it will fall into his hands and he will come to her rescue. Part two tells the story of Guenelic’s adventures as he and his partner in derring-do, Quezinstra, search across Europe for Hélisenne’s prison. The novel concludes with Quezinstra’s narration of the fate of Hélisenne and Guenelic.

Not only an exciting story vividly told, The Torments of Love is also one of the most important sixteenth-century works by a woman author, a harbinger of the development of the sentimental novel as well as a continuation of the medieval romance tradition. This edition is the first English translation and the only complete version of this lost masterwork currently in print in any language.

Excerpt:

“‘Truly I do love him, passionately and with all my heart, and with such great constancy that nothing short of death can ever keep me from loving him. So come then with your sword: make my soul transmigrate out of this unhappy corporeal prison, I beg you; for I prefer to die by a violent death rather than by continual langour; it would be better to be strangled than to be always hanging. And so do not delay any longer. Pierce through my changeable heart, and draw back your stained and bloody sword.’”