Daughter of Fortune

First edition in English. Tall 8vo. Pp. viii, [2], 399. 1 b/w map. Black moiré-patterned cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine; deckled fore-edge. Sepia jacket design by Honi Werner, without the Oprah slug, common to later-issue jackets. Decorative ochre-yellow endpapers with black lace design.

Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden. Originally published as Hija de la Fortuna, by Plaza & Janes, Spain, in 1998.

Author's fifth novel. An Oprah Book Club pick for February 2000. A young Chilean woman's search for self-knowledge, amidst the Californian goldfields, after she arrives as a pregnant stowaway from the bustling entrepôt of Valparaiso, hot on the heels of her gold-besotted lover.

Recipient of Chile's National Literature Prize, the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Allende spent seven years researching this, her "breakthrough" novel. "Allende has created a masterpiece of historical fiction that is passionate, adventurous, and brilliantly insightful [...] suspenseful and surprising." –Denver Post