Esmeralda

A quiet French teacher and his wife, Clélie, live contentedly in modest Parisian independence until a strange American family moves into their building. At the Louvre and then at home, they are struck by the contrast between a forceful, socially ambitious mother, a meek mountain father, and their beautiful, withdrawn daughter, Esmeralda. Clélie begins teaching the girl and discovers a life of hard labor, sudden wealth, and deep homesickness, as the family's North Carolina past gives way to Parisian pressure and painful class transformation. As the narrator and Clélie grow fond of Esmeralda and her gentle, embarrassed father, they watch the mother push her into society and toward a marquis, while the girl's sorrow intensifies. Esmeralda's despair is tied not only to exile but to a lost love, Wash, a poor young man hidden away in the same building and nearly starved. When Clélie and the narrator save him, the lovers are reunited in a tender, hard-won moment of joy. But the reunion forces a final reckoning: Esmeralda must choose between Wash and her family, and her unwavering answer reveals the novel's enduring themes of love, sacrifice, loyalty, and the cost of ambition. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.