Elisabeth; ou les Exilés de Sibérie by Madame Cottin

(4 User reviews)   373
Cottin, Madame (Sophie), 1770-1807 Cottin, Madame (Sophie), 1770-1807
French
Ever wonder how far you'd go for your family? Imagine your father gets exiled to the frozen wastelands of Siberia. That's the reality for Elisabeth. This isn't a story about waiting for a rescue; it's about a young woman who decides to rescue her parents herself. She leaves their remote village and walks thousands of miles, across a brutal landscape, straight to the heart of Imperial Russia. Her goal? To beg the Tsar for mercy. It's a journey of pure grit and devotion, written with such emotion that it became a huge bestseller in its day. Forget epic battles—this is an epic walk, fueled by love.
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wars, and is the subject of current papers and a critical edition by I. F. Clarke in Britain. Robida is forgotten (or was never known) in America, but in France he is remembered. His sketches and caricatures, particularly of humorous and satirical visions of what lay in the future, were decades ahead of their time. Disney adopted some of his drawings as backgrounds for their views of the future at a pavilion at Epcot, and web sites attempt today to bring some of his best work back into circulation. If Robida is mostly forgotten, Uzanne can be truly said to have vanished from the cultural consciousness of the world. Yet he was well known as a writer and critic of his day, and some of his works command high prices from rare-book dealers. One presumes that much of his work was more bound to the circumstances of the current day than were the drawings of Robida, whose art has a certain timelessness to it (even where it graphically predicts a future that demonstrably did not happen). What follows is one of the pieces from _Contes_. Writing and drawing in 1894, Uzanne and Robida give us predictions of a post-literate society. Music and speech are everywhere! Newspapers are forgotten, and news presenters are valued for their emotional tone instead of the accuracy of their reporting. Recordings combined with cinema present costumed drama and humor in the home. (This is 1894, remember; Edison had truly just begun to produce his films.) Printed books are over and done with! They are no longer needed. As some companies _Hidden Knowledge_, for example) begin to create electronic books that will never be published in printed form, we need to remember... it was all predicted more than a hundred years ago. [Illustration] Notes on the re-creation of "The End of Books" The original drawings in the collection _Contes pour les Bibliophiles_ were scanned as black-and-white drawings at 600 dpi, and cleaned up in Photoshop. The drawings were extracted and processed individually to reduce their file size and improve their visual presentation on computer screens. The text was run through Textbridge 9, which did a surprisingly good job at OCR. The HTML layout merges the recovered text and the processed images back together again, and is designed to approximate that of the original. It is impossible to imitate it exactly, for all browser configurations, in HTML. You can do it in PDF; we looked at conversion to PDF but decided to keep things simple. One hopes also that future XML layout tools will provide this capability. The original is in French, and providing a proper translation is outside the scope of this project. I wrote a summary in English for those us of who do not have the French language. Or see the "Scribner's Magazine" references below. I have no idea what was originally written as the last word in the caption of the drawing of Public Domain Archive and the devil. It appears to have been scratched off the printing plate. _Contes pour les Bibliophiles_ was noted in "The Century Magazine" (May, 1895, page 354 ff.) in a review section on "Books in Paper Covers." I say noted; but actually, only the cover was reviewed. The cover was reproduced in a photoengraving in "Century" and its artistic values were denigrated; the contents apparently remained unread. Perhaps they were unhappy because Uzanne ocasionally appeared in English in "Scribner's Magazine", which competed fiercely with "Century". The story itself appeared in a clumsy English translation in "Scribner's", Vol. 16 (1894), pp 221-231, with illustrations by Robida — some the...

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First published in 1806, Elisabeth; ou les Exilés de Sibérie is a classic French novel that feels both historical and surprisingly intimate. It's a story that pulls you in with a simple, powerful premise.

The Story

The plot is straightforward but incredibly moving. Elisabeth's parents are noble exiles, living in harsh poverty in a remote Siberian village. Devastated by their suffering, the young Elisabeth makes a radical decision. She will travel alone, on foot, from Siberia to Saint Petersburg to personally petition the Tsar for a pardon. The heart of the book is this perilous journey. We follow her as she faces freezing cold, hunger, and danger, sustained only by her unwavering love for her family. It's a tense, emotional race against time and the elements.

Why You Should Read It

This book is all about heart. Elisabeth is not a warrior in the traditional sense, but her courage is immense. Madame Cottin writes with a raw, sentimental power that makes you feel every blister and every hope. While the style is of its time, the core themes are timeless: the lengths of filial piety, resilience against impossible odds, and the quiet strength found in determination. It's less about complex politics and more about a single, extraordinary act of love.

Final Verdict

Perfect for readers who love a strong, classic heroine and an emotionally charged adventure. If you enjoy historical fiction that focuses on personal journeys over grand battles, or if you're curious about the bestselling sentimental novels of the 19th century, this is a fascinating read. It’s a compact, powerful tale that proves a long walk can be the most epic quest of all.



✅ Open Access

This masterpiece is free from copyright limitations. Thank you for supporting open literature.

Thomas Nguyen
1 month ago

From a reader’s standpoint, the emotional weight of the story is balanced perfectly with moments of levity. This sets a high standard for similar books.

Dorothy Allen
3 months ago

This immediately felt different because the organization of topics is intuitive and reader-friendly. Highly recommended for everyone.

Karen Gonzalez
5 months ago

Initially overlooked, this book the translation seems very fluid and captures the original nuance perfectly. I couldn't put it down until the very end.

Kevin Lopez
1 month ago

I needed a solid reference and it creates a vivid world that you simply do not want to leave. Highly recommended for everyone.

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