An adult fairy tale and like most fairy tales it is unmitigating in its detailing of harsh and detached cruelty. Psyche is a descendant of the original Pysche whom Cupid loved, but this story is even more compelling and tortured than the archetypal Greek myth from which it derives. The symbolism that it uses is that of the luxuriousness, hardness and beauty of precious stones that create the imagery and reflect the identity of the novel's landscape.
Author Biography: Louis Couperus was born in the Hague in 1863. He was taken by his family to the Dutch Indies where he remained until his father's death. Couperus settled in Italy after his marriage in 1891. He was a prolific novelist whose work has been compared to Thomas Hardy because of their mutual interest in the themes of fate and the relentless force of inherited tragedy.
