Ilse

Under the pseudonym of "Ossit," Madeleine ­Deslandes (1866-1929) wrote Ilse, her second novel, which first appeared in 1894. Like a fable or a long poem in prose, it tells the story of a young and charming woman of Bamberg who seems to at least partially exist in the land of fairies and flowers-but men and fate are less kind.

A minor masterpiece, a mystical idyll, Ilse, framed in green hills and light blue skies strewn with swallows, is as much a drowsy dream as it is a book.