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51-430: Loser Takes All is a 1955 novella by British author Graham Greene . In his dedication Greene said he had not written "this little story" to encourage "adultery, the use of pyjama tops, or registry office weddings. Nor is it meant to discourage gambling". Mr. Bertram and Cary are about to get married. An unambitious assistant accountant, Bertram's plans for marriage are not particularly exciting. One day, he comes to

102-483: A novel , yet more complicated ones than a short story . The conflicts also have more time to develop than in short stories. Novellas may or may not be divided into chapters (good examples of those with chapters are Animal Farm by George Orwell and The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells ), and white space is often used to divide the sections, something less common in short stories. Novellas may be intended to be read at

153-480: A "best novella" award and sometimes a separate "best novelette" award, separately from "best short story" or "best novel". The distinction between these categories may be entirely by word count . Marguerite de Navarre Marguerite was born in Angoulême on 11 April 1492, the eldest child of Louise of Savoy and Charles, Count of Angoulême . Her father was a descendant of Charles V , and would thus have been on

204-444: A book's length, saying that "any distinctions that begin with an objective and external quality like size are bound to be misleading." Stephen King , in his introduction to Different Seasons , a 1982 collection of four novellas, notes the difficulties of selling a novella in the commercial publishing world, since it does not fit the typical length requirements of either magazine or book publishers. Despite these problems, however,

255-542: A day for many days, to meet a safe-conduct deadline, while writing her diplomatic letters at night. Her only son, Jean, was born in Blois on 7 July 1530, when Marguerite was thirty-eight. The child died on Christmas Day the same year. Scholars believe that her grief motivated Marguerite to write her most controversial work, Miroir de l'âme pécheresse  (The Mirror of the Sinful Soul), in 1531. Sorbonne theologians condemned

306-508: A direct mentoring link or legacy of reformist religious convictions. As a generous patron of the arts, Marguerite befriended and protected many artists and writers, among them François Rabelais (1483–1553), Clément Marot (1496–1544), Claude de Bectoz (1490–1547), Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585) and Julián Íñiguez de Medrano (1520's-1585-1588). Also, Marguerite served as a mediator between Roman Catholics and Protestants (including John Calvin ). Although Marguerite espoused reform within

357-411: A long time I have cherished all the many excellent gifts that God bestowed upon you; prudence worthy of a philosopher; chastity; moderation; piety; an invincible strength of soul, and a marvelous contempt for all the vanities of this world. Who could keep from admiring, in a great king's sister, such qualities as these, so rare even among the priests and monks." In 1550, one year after Marguerite's death,

408-522: A notable Walloon Protestant reformer in Geneva. The two women appear to have personal history outside of their written correspondence: Marguerite was godmother to the daughter of Marie Dentière and Dentière's daughter composed a French guide to the Hebrew language to send to Marguerite's daughter. In her letter, Marguerite inquired what was the cause for Calvin and Farel's expulsion. Dentière responded in 1539 with

459-749: A novella embodies." Sometimes, as with other genres, the genre name is mentioned in the title of a single work (compare the Divine Comedy or Goethe 's Das Märchen ). Austrian writer Stefan Zweig 's Die Schachnovelle (1942) (literally, "The Chess Novella", but translated in 1944 as The Royal Game ) is an example of a title naming its genre. This might be suggestive of the genre's historicization. Commonly, longer novellas are referred to as novels; Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) are sometimes called novels, as are many science fiction works such as H. G. Wells' The War of

510-429: A novella is a fictional narrative of indeterminate length—a few pages to hundreds—restricted to a single, suspenseful event, situation, or conflict leading to an unexpected turning point ( Wendepunkt ), provoking a logical but surprising end. Novellen tend to contain a concrete symbol, which is the narrative's focal point. The novella influenced the development of the short story and the novel throughout Europe. In

561-480: A range between 17,500 and 40,000 words is commonly used for the novella category, whereas 7,500–17,500 is commonly used for novelettes. According to The Writer , a novelette is approximately between 7,000 and 20,000 words in length, anything shorter being considered a short story. This list contains those novellas that are widely considered to be the best examples of the genre, through their appearance on multiple best-of lists. Some literary awards include

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612-670: A remarkably intense religious poem, Miroir de l'âme pécheresse ( The Mirror of the Sinful Soul ). This poem is a first-person, mystical narrative of the soul as a yearning woman calling out to Christ as her father-brother-lover. Her work was passed to the royal court of England, suggesting that Marguerite had influence on the Protestant Reformation in England. Following the expulsion of John Calvin and William Farel from Geneva in 1538, Marguerite de Navarre wrote to Marie Dentière ,

663-504: A residence nearby. During the first few years of the reign of Francis the château in which he lived reached the pinnacle of its glory. Leonardo had been the architect of a large château for them, among many other projects, and they provided quarters for him when he left Italy and joined her court. As a guest of the king, who provided him with a comfortable stipend, Leonardo da Vinci came to Château Amboise in December 1515 and lived and worked in

714-403: A set of exquisite little tales, novels in the original meaning of the word)". But when the term novella was used it was already clear that a rather short and witty form was intended: "The brief Novella has ever been a prodigious favorite with the nation…since the days of Boccaccio." In 1902, William Dean Howells wrote: "Few modern fictions of the novel's dimensions…have the beauty of form many

765-419: A single sitting, like short stories, and thus produce a unitary effect on the reader. According to Warren Cariou , "The novella is generally not as formally experimental as the long story and the novel can be, and it usually lacks the subplots, the multiple points of view, and the generic adaptability that are common in the novel. It is most often concerned with personal and emotional development rather than with

816-645: A story to be considered a novella, a short story or a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association defines a novella's word count to be between 17,500 and 40,000 words; at 250 words per page, this equates to 70 to 160 pages. See below for definitions used by other organisations. The novella as a literary genre began developing in the Italian literature of the early Renaissance , principally by Giovanni Boccaccio , author of The Decameron (1353). The Decameron featured 100 tales (named novellas) told by ten people (seven women and three men) fleeing

867-617: A tributary poem, Annae, Margaritae, Ianae, sororum virginum heroidum Anglarum, in mortem Diuae Margaritae Valesiae, Nauarrorum Reginae, Hecatodistichon , was published in England. It was written by the nieces of Jane Seymour (1505–1537), third wife of King Henry VIII. American historian Will Durant wrote: "In Marguerite the Renaissance and the Reformation were for a moment one. Her influence radiated throughout France. Every free spirit looked upon her as protectoress and ideal .... Marguerite

918-518: Is "loser takes all". A film based on the novella was made in 1956, starring Rossano Brazzi and Glynis Johns , and Hal Osmond . A remake starring Robert Lindsay and Molly Ringwald was shot in 1990 and directed by James Scott . It was later re-cut and retitled as Strike It Rich by Harvey Weinstein . Novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels , but longer than most novelettes and short stories . The English word novella derives from

969-553: Is certain that in 1544, nine years after Anne Boleyn's execution, Anne's daughter, who would become Elizabeth I (1533–1603), translated the poem into English prose as The Miroir or Glasse of the Synneful Soul when she was eleven years old and presented it, written in her own hand, to her then-stepmother, the English queen Katherine Parr . This literary connection between Marguerite, Anne Boleyn, Katherine Parr, and Elizabeth suggests

1020-466: Is conjecture that the courts of Claude and Marguerite overlapped and that perhaps Anne was in service to Marguerite, not only to Claude, and may have become a follower of Marguerite's, absorbing her views about Christianity. A letter by Anne Boleyn after she became queen exists in which she makes strong expressions of affection to Marguerite. It is conjectured that Marguerite gave Anne the original manuscript of Miroir de l'âme pécheresse at some point. It

1071-408: Is not deliberate: he is only forgetful. Bertram, while still doubting Dreuther's sincerity, tells him about his trouble. The wise and well-meaning Dreuther then devises a plan that would help Bertram get Cary back. The plan works perfectly. With Cary coming back to him, Bertram is happy even though he loses all his money to Bowles (thereby cancelling his deal with him) and the hungry young man. Hence, it

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1122-414: Is short enough and straightforward enough to qualify as a novella. However, historically, it has been regarded as a novel. Dictionaries define novelette similarly to novella , sometimes identically, sometimes with a disparaging sense of being trivial or sentimental. Some literary awards have a longer "novella" and a shorter "novelette" category, with a distinction based on word count . Among awards,

1173-582: The Black Death , by escaping from Florence to the Fiesole hills in 1348. This structure was then imitated by subsequent authors, notably the French queen Marguerite de Navarre , whose Heptaméron (1559) included 72 original French tales and was modeled after the structure of The Decameron . The Italian genre novella grew out of a rich tradition of medieval short narrative forms. It took its first major form in

1224-628: The Epistre tres utile , commonly known today as the Epistle to Marguerite de Navarre . This epistle criticized the Protestant clergy who had expelled Calvin and Farel, asked for Marguerite's support and aid in increasing scriptural literacy and access among women, and advised her to act in expelling Catholic clergy from France. During her years in France, Anne Boleyn had been a lady-in-waiting to Queen Claude. There

1275-610: The Catholic Church, she was not a Calvinist . She did, however, do her best to protect the reformers and dissuaded Francis I from intolerant measures as long as she could. After her death, eight religious wars occurred in France, including the notorious St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572. Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) died while guest of Marguerite and her brother, Francis I. They had been raised at Château d'Amboise , which belonged to their mother, Louise of Savoy. The king maintained his residence there and Marguerite maintained

1326-508: The French Encyclopedists and the rationalist philosophers of the eighteenth century, such as Voltaire and Diderot , esteemed her highly, writing: "... for a queen to grant her protection to people persecuted for opinions which she believes to be false; to open a sanctuary to them; to preserve them from the flames prepared for them; to furnish them with a subsistence; liberally to relieve the troubles and inconveniences of their exile,

1377-406: The Italian novella meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts. The Italian term is a feminine of novello , which means new , similarly to the English word news . Merriam-Webster defines a novella as "a work of fiction intermediate in length and complexity between a short story and a novel ". There is disagreement regarding the number of pages or words necessary for

1428-409: The Worlds (1897) and Philip Francis Nowlan's Armageddon 2419 A.D. (1928). Less often, longer works are referred to as novellas. The subjectivity of the parameters of the novella genre is indicative of its shifting and diverse nature as an art form. In her 2010 Open Letters Monthly series, "A Year With Short Novels", Ingrid Norton criticizes the tendency to make clear demarcations based purely on

1479-399: The alliance was courteously rebuffed. Perhaps the one real love in her life was Gaston de Foix, Duc de Nemours , nephew of King Louis XII . Gaston went to Italy, however, and died a hero at Ravenna , when the French defeated Spanish and Papal forces. At the age of seventeen Marguerite was married to Charles IV of Alençon , aged twenty, by the decree of King Louis XII (who also arranged

1530-570: The anonymous late 13th century Libro di novelle et di bel parlar gentile , known as Il Novellino , and reached its culmination with The Decameron . Followers of Boccaccio such as Giovanni Fiorentino , Franco Sacchetti , Giovanni Sercambi and Simone de' Prodenzani continued the tradition into the early 15th century. The Italian novella influenced many later writers, including Shakespeare . Novellas were also written in Spain. Miguel de Cervantes ' book Novelas ejemplares (1613) added innovation to

1581-536: The attention of Dreuther, the powerful director of his company, who changes Bertram's plan for him: they are to wed and honeymoon in Monte Carlo . Dreuther will meet the couple in Monte Carlo and be their witness, on board his private yacht. Bertram and Cary arrive in Monte Carlo but Dreuther does not show up. The couple are therefore forced to stay there. Bertram is angry with Dreuther. In order to make sure they can pay

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1632-466: The company, he will get his revenge on Dreuther. Meanwhile, Cary is disappointed that Bertram becomes obsessed with his system. A romantic person, she does not want him to become rich. At this time, she meets a "hungry" young man who expresses his love for her. She decides to leave Bertram. Devastated, Bertram does not know what to do. He blames Dreuther for ruining his marriage. Just at this time, Dreuther arrives on his yacht. He explains that his no-show

1683-418: The concentrated focus of the short story and the broad scope of the novel. In his essay, "Briefly, the case for the novella", Canadian author George Fetherling (who wrote the novella Tales of Two Cities ) said that to reduce the novella to nothing more than a short novel is like "insisting that a pony is a baby horse". The sometimes blurry definition between a novel and a novella can create controversy, as

1734-570: The education of needy students." Jules Michelet (1798–1874), the most celebrated historian of his time, wrote of her: "Let us always remember this tender Queen of Navarre, in whose arms our people, fleeing from prison or the pyre, found safety, honor, and friendship. Our gratitude to you, Mother of our [French] Renaissance! Your hearth was that of our saints, your heart the nest of our freedom." Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), French philosopher and critic, whose Dictionnaire historique et critique (Historical and Critical Dictionary , 1697) greatly influenced

1785-410: The example set by her mother, Marguerite became the most influential woman in France during her lifetime when her brother acceded to the crown as Francis I in 1515. Her salon , known as the "New Parnassus", became famous internationally. After the death of Queen Claude, she took in her two nieces Madeleine and Marguerite , for whom she would continue to care during her second marriage. Marguerite

1836-498: The genre with more attention to the depiction of human character and social background. Not until the late 18th and early 19th centuries did writers fashion the novella into a literary genre structured by precepts and rules, generally in a realistic mode . At that time, the Germans were the most active writers of the novelle (German: "Novelle"; plural: "Novellen"). For the German writer,

1887-418: The hotel bills, Bertram visits the casino. At first he loses, but gradually his system starts working, and he begins to win big money. He wins so much money that he gets the attention of Mr. Bowles, another director of the company gambling in Monte Carlo, who is also a rival of Dreuther. Bowles wants Bertram to lend him money. In exchange, Bertram wants Bowles' shares of the company, so that, in gaining control of

1938-460: The independent principality of Béarn, and several dependencies in Gascony . Approximately a year after the lead image (in the information box) that was painted by Jean Clouet, on 16 November 1528, Marguerite gave birth to a daughter by Henry, the future Jeanne III of Navarre , who became the mother of the future Henry IV of France . A Venetian ambassador of that time praised Marguerite as knowing all

1989-406: The larger social sphere. The novella generally retains something of the unity of impression that is a hallmark of the short story, but it also contains more highly developed characterization and more luxuriant description. The term novel , borrowed from the Italian novella , originally meant "any of a number of tales or stories making up a larger work; a short narrative of this type, a fable", and

2040-400: The late 19th century Henry James was one of the first English language critics to use the term novella for a story that was longer and more complex than a short story, but shorter than a novel. In English speaking countries the modern novella is rarely defined as a distinct literary genre, but is often used as a term for a short novel. A novella generally features fewer conflicts than

2091-781: The line of succession to the French crown by masculine primogeniture , if both Charles VIII and the presumptive heir, Louis, Duke of Orléans , had died without producing male offspring. Two years after Marguerite's birth, the family moved from Angoulême to Cognac , "where the Italian influence reigned supreme, and where Boccaccio was looked upon as a little less than a god". She had several half-siblings from illegitimate relationships of her father, who were raised alongside Marguerite and her brother Francis. Two girls, Jeanne of Angoulême and Madeleine, were born of her father's long relationship with his châtelaine , Antoinette de Polignac, Dame de Combronde, who later became Louise's lady-in-waiting and confidante. Another half-sister, Souveraine,

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2142-501: The marriage of his ten-year-old daughter, Claude , to Francis). With this decree, Marguerite was forced to marry a generally kind but practically illiterate man for political expediency—"the radiant young princess of the violet-blue eyes... had become the bride of a laggard and a dolt". She had been bartered to save the royal pride of Louis, by keeping the County of Armagnac in the family. There were no offspring from this marriage. Following

2193-535: The nearby Clos Lucé , connected to the château by an underground passage. Tourists are told that he is buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert, adjoining the Château, which had been built in 1491–96. Pierre Brantôme said of her: "She was a great princess. But in addition to all that, she was very kind, gentle, gracious, charitable, a great dispenser of alms and friendly to all." The Dutch humanist Erasmus wrote to her: "For

2244-487: The novella's length provides unique advantages; in the introduction to a novella anthology titled Sailing to Byzantium , Robert Silverberg writes: [The novella] is one of the richest and most rewarding of literary forms...it allows for more extended development of theme and character than does the short story, without making the elaborate structural demands of the full-length book. Thus it provides an intense, detailed exploration of its subject, providing to some degree both

2295-462: The secrets of diplomatic art, hence to be treated with deference and circumspection. Marguerite's most remarkable adventure involved freeing her brother, King Francis I, who had been held prisoner in Spain by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor after being captured in the Battle of Pavia , Italy, 1525. During a critical period of the negotiations, Queen Marguerite rode horseback through wintry woods, twelve hours

2346-612: The work as heresy. A monk said Marguerite should be sewn into a sack and thrown into the Seine . Students at the Collège de Navarre satirized her in a play as "a Fury from Hell". Her brother forced the charges to be dropped, however, and obtained an apology from the Sorbonne. Marguerite wrote many poems and plays. Her most notable works are a classic collection of short stories, the Heptameron , and

2397-515: Was born to Jeanne le Conte, also one of her father's mistresses. Thanks to her mother, who was only nineteen when widowed, Marguerite was carefully tutored from her earliest childhood and given a classical education that included Latin. The young princess was to be called " Maecenas to the learned ones of her brother's kingdom". When Marguerite was ten, Louise tried to marry her to the Prince of Wales, who would later become Henry VIII of England , but

2448-518: Was married twice, first to Charles IV of Alençon , but this marriage was childless. Her next marriage was to Henry II of Navarre . The children of Marguerite and Henry were: After the death of her first husband in 1525, Marguerite married Henry II of Navarre in January 1527 at St. Germain-en-Laye. Ferdinand II of Aragon had invaded the Kingdom of Navarre in 1512, and Henry ruled only Lower Navarre ,

2499-523: Was the case with British writer Ian McEwan 's On Chesil Beach (2007). The author described it as a novella, but the panel for the Man Booker Prize in 2007 qualified the book as a "short novel". Thus, this "novella" was shortlisted for an award for best original novel. A similar case is found with a much older work of fiction: The Call of the Wild (1903) by Jack London . This book, by modern standards,

2550-471: Was the embodiment of charity. She would walk unescorted in the streets of Navarre , allowing any one to approach her and would listen at first hand to the sorrows of the people. She called herself 'The Prime Minister of the Poor'. Henri, her husband, King of Navarre, believed in what she was doing, even to the extent of setting up a public works system that became a model for France. Together he and Marguerite financed

2601-469: Was then many times used in the plural, reflecting the usage as in The Decameron and its followers. Usage of the more italianate novella in English seems to be a bit younger. The differentiation of the two terms seems to have occurred only in the 19th century, following the new fashion of the novella in German literature. In 1834, John Lothrop Motley could still speak of "Tieck's novels (which last are

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