New Releases by Mark Helprin

Mark Helprin, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Winter’s Tale and A Soldier of the Great War, presents a fast-paced, beautifully written novel about the majesty of the sea; a life dedicated to duty, honor, and country; and the gift of falling in love. A Navy captain near the end of a decorated career, Stephen Rensselaer is disciplined, intelligent, and determined to always do what’s right. In defending the development of a new variant of warship, he makes an enemy of the president of the United States, who assigns him to command the doomed line’s only prototype––Athena, Patrol Coastal 15––with the intent to humiliate a man who should have been an admiral. Rather than resign, Rensselaer takes the new assignment in stride, and while supervising Athena’s fitting out in New Orleans, encounters a brilliant lawyer, Katy Farrar, with whom he falls in last-chance love. Soon thereafter, he is deployed on a mission that subjects his integrity, morality, and skill to the ultimate test, and ensures that Athena will live forever in the annals of the Navy. As in the Odyssey, Katy is the force that keeps him alive and the beacon that lights the way home through seven battles, mutiny, and court martial. In classic literary form, an enthralling new novel that extolls the virtues of living by the laws of conscience, decency, and sacrifice, The Oceans and the Stars is nothing short of a masterpiece.

Mark Helprin’s powerful, rapturous new novel is set in a present-day Paris caught between violent unrest and its well-known, inescapable glories. Seventy-four-year-old Jules Lacour—a maître at Paris-Sorbonne, cellist, widower, veteran of the war in Algeria, and child of the Holocaust—must find a balance between his strong obligations to the past and the attractions and beauties of life and love in the present. In the midst of what should be an effulgent time of life—days bright with music, family, rowing on the Seine—Jules is confronted headlong and all at once by a series of challenges to his principles, livelihood, and home, forcing him to grapple with his complex past and find a way forward. He risks fraud to save his terminally ill infant grandson, matches wits with a renegade insurance investigator, is drawn into an act of savage violence, and falls deeply, excitingly in love with a young cellist a third his age. Against the backdrop of an exquisite and knowing vision of Paris and the way it can uniquely shape a life, he forges a denouement that is staggering in its humanity, elegance, and truth.In the intoxicating beauty of its prose and emotional amplitude of its storytelling, Mark Helprin’s Paris in the Present Tense is a soaring achievement, a deep, dizzying look at a life through the purifying lenses of art and memory.

This award-winning short story collection by the acclaimed author of Winter’s Tale “ascends to the peak of literary achievement” (The Boston Globe). Winner of the Prix de Rome and the National Jewish Book Award, these eleven stories demonstrate Mark Helprin’s mastery of fiction across a diverse spectrum of styles. The stories in this collection range from children caught in a Vermont blizzard to an English sea captain who encounters an ape adrift in the Indian Ocean. The title novella tells the tale of a Jewish immigrant who arrives in New York City with little more than an ivory pen—and an unflagging determination to survive the indignities of Ellis Island’s many protocols. In the worlds of The Philadelphia Inquirer, this collection presents “stories beyond compare…[Helprin’s] imagination should be protected by some intellectual equivalent of the National Park Service.” "Such an ambitious reach is almost unheard of in our short fiction."—New York Times Book Review

Mark Helprins phantastischer Roman ist die fiktive Autobiographie eines recht betagten exzentrischen Abenteurers und kosmopolitischen Verbrechers, dessen Leben von einer einzigen Obsession beherrscht wird – der fanatischen Aversion gegen Kaffee. Die Geschichte dieses seltsamen achtzigjährigen Autobiographen, der seine Memoiren für seinen kleinen Ziehsohn Blatt für Blatt zu Papier bringt, scheint von Anfang an voller Geheimnisse und Ungereimtheiten, die sich im Laufe der episodenhaften Niederschrift erst ganz allmählich auflösen, neu verwickeln und schließlich eine Erklärung finden. Denn Oscar Progressos Geschichte, die sich liest wie ein Abenteuerroman, ist aus einem einzigen Erlebnis heraus begründet. (Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine frühere Ausgabe.)

Un venerdì mattina del 1946, in completo beige, camicia bianca e cravatta azzurra, Harry Copeland esce di casa sua, al 333 di Central Park West a New York. È una splendida giornata, e trovarsi a New York in una giornata simile dista un niente dalla sensazione di essere innamorati. Gli alberi fioriscono come nubi luminose nei parchi, e pennacchi di fumo e vapore si levano verso l’azzurro o si arricciano al vento. Harry è appena tornato dalla guerra senza sapere che cosa avrebbe trovato in patria. Dopo aver combattuto per mare, per terra e in cielo, dovrebbe sistemarsi, mettere su famiglia, ma non è ancora accaduto niente e tutto sembra uguale a prima: metropolitane, ristoranti, telefonate, conti da pagare. A Staten Island trascorre un paio d’ore seduto al sole nel giardino a picco sul mare di sua zia Elaine, vedova dell’unico fratello di suo padre, poi al ritorno, sul traghetto che lo riporta a South Ferry, si imbatte di nuovo nella giovane donna dalla struggente bellezza intravista da lontano all’andata, mentre incedeva sul ponte con la schiena diritta e la testa alta. Nella penombra dei pilastri e delle palizzate di legno, Harry si accorge di come ogni suo particolare lo colpisca irrimediabilmente al cuore: la grazia con cui si muove o rimane ferma; le mani e il modo in cui le tiene; le forme in cui le sue dita si compongono; la camicetta che indossa con un ricamo perlaceo elaborato ma sobrio; persino le pieghe della gonna; e la voce che, nitida, si sofferma su ogni sillaba. La giovane donna si chiama Catherine Thomas Hale, ma ha scelto un altro nome, Catherine Sedley, per togliere di torno la sua famiglia e calcare la scena di scalcinati musical con orchestre formate dagli scarti della New York Philharmonic e registi che agognano improbabili trionfi a Broadway. New York, però, non è più la città calma e onesta di un tempo, e tra le sue strade fumose prosperano gli affari loschi della malavita. Quando, perciò, un vecchio promesso sposo di Catherine si presenta al suo cospetto e un gruppo di gangster minaccia di far saltare in aria la pelletteria di famiglia, Harry capisce che, se davvero vuole conquistare Catherine, deve nuovamente combattere. E vincere. Costi quel che costi. Meraviglioso inno all’amore, ai mille volti di New York e all’America, New York Times Bestseller tradotto in numerosi paesi, Nella luce e nell’ombra ha riscosso, al suo apparire negli Stati Uniti, uno straordinario successo di pubblico e di critica. «Per la grande costruzione narrativa, i principi morali, la magnificenza della scrittura e lo splendore di New York, questo romanzo è la continuazione ideale di Storia d’inverno». The Wall Street Journal «La cifra di Helprin è la capacità di evocare la potenza vitale di ciò che ci circonda». Lara Crinò, il Venerdì - la Repubblica

Wintervertelling is een zeldzaam meeslepende roman waarin de stad New York de hoofdrol speelt. De ontmoeting tussen Beverly Penn en Peter Lake is allesbehalve alledaags. Peter breekt in bij het mooiste huis van de stad. Wanneer Beverly niet de politie belt, maar de dief een kop thee aanbiedt, wordt Peter overweldigd door sterke gevoelens voor het ongeneeslijk zieke meisje. Hij is vastbesloten om het meisje met de rode haren te redden. De tijd stilzetten en zo de dood tegenhouden is zijn enige hoop. Maar zal het hem lukken dat wonder te verrichten voor het te laat is? Het verhaal ontvouwt zich met zon kracht en schoonheid dat de magische wereld uit het boek meer dan echt aanvoelt en de lezer wordt ondergedompeld in een onvergetelijk, literair liefdesverhaal. Adembenemend. Helprin is meesterlijk, grappig en scherp, lyrisch en poëtisch. Een ongekend talent Los Angeles Times

« J’ai été dans un autre monde et j’en suis revenu. Écoutez-moi. » Conte d’hiver est une ode à la ville que l’on traverse comme le temps, où l’on se promène à la fin du xixe siècle et autour de l’an 2000. C’est un New York fantasmé, peuplé de personnages étranges et fascinants : un cheval qui vole, un tatoueur orphelin, une femme amoureuse des mots, un gang féroce et des hommes qui rêvent d’« une ville parfaitement juste ». C’est aussi l’histoire d’un amour fou entre un voleur magnifique et une jeune fille fortunée qui, pour s’aimer, devront braver les conventions sociales et les limites de la mort. Il y a tout cela dans Conte d’hiver : la folie, le rêve, le fantastique, le comique, l’invention poétique. Un roman inclassable sous l’influence de Dick et Dickens.

«Divertente, profondo, emozionante». New York Times «Il romanzo di Helprin lascia senza fiato e lui è un grande talento». Los Angeles Times Book Review «Questo libro rompe le barriere del romanzo contemporaneo». Newsday «Helprin è più di un grande scrittore; ha tutte le caratteristiche per essere il più grande». USA Today «Non c’è oggi in giro uno scrittore accostabile per talento a Mark Helprin». Elle

New York, ausgehendes 19. Jahrhundert: Der Waisenjunge Peter Lake schlägt sich mit Diebstählen durch. Auf seinen Streifzügen durch die von Verfall und Verbrechen gezeichnete Stadt wird er von einem geheimnisvollen weißen Hengst begleitet, der ihm auf der Flucht vor einer Gangstermeute das Leben rettet. Als Peter in eine festungsgleiche Villa an der Upper West Side einbricht, begegnet er Beverly. Zwischen den beiden jungen Menschen entspinnt sich eine magische Liebesgeschichte ...

The New York Times No. 1 bestseller. One night in New York, a city under siege by snow, Peter Lake attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side. Though he thinks it is empty, the daughter of the house is home . . . Thus begins the affair between this Irish burglar and Beverly Penn, a young girl dying of consumption. It is a love so powerful that Peter will be driven to stop time and bring back the dead; A New York Winter''s Tale is the story of that extraordinary journey.

Una fábula de amor con elementos mágicos, ambientada a principios del siglo XX en Nueva York. Mark Helprin nació en Nueva York en 1947 en el seno de una familia estrechamente relacionada con el mundo del cine, y actualmente reside en una casa de campo en Virginia. Educado en Harvard, Princeton y Oxford, Helprin trabajó para el ejército israelí mientras ejercía como periodista para The New Yorker, The New York Times y The Washington Post, y como autor de ensayos y obras de ficción para adultos y niños. Su primera novela fue publicada en 1977, pero el éxito extraordinario llegó en 1983 con Cuento de invierno, una novela que ya forma parte de la gran tradición norteamericana.

Peter Lake -- orphan, thief, mechanic extraordinaire -- and Athansor, a flying Brooklyn milkhorse, establish a reign of love and justice in New York City in the year 2000.

This “dazzling collection” of short stories by the World Fantasy Award-winning author of Winter’s Talecontemplates the human experience across the globe (The San Francisco Chronicle & Examiner). In these twenty stories, Mark Helprin offers a series of meditations on some of humanity’s most enduring and universal questions. At the hour of his death, an American priest in Rome must choose between his church and his God. A young man finds love in a hot, dirty typewriter-ribbon factory in the Bronx. A Dutch child in a Canadian orphanage carries the pain of war and her love for her family in her heart. An Israeli scout risks the safety and respect of his comrades in an act of transformative charity. Through beautifully rendered memories and moments of epiphany, “all Helprin''s stories deal with essences which lead from the heart…his images are clean and sharp and bright” (Kirkus). “When you read these stories, a you must, you will, I believe, be uplifted and awed.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer

An Israeli soldier’s life flashes before his eyes in this epic tale: “As if The Odyssey had been updated and rewritten by Dylan Thomas” (The Listener, UK). In 1947, Marshall Pearl is orphaned at birth aboard an immigrant ship off the coast of Palestine. Brought to America, he grows up a child of the Hudson Valley, determined to see the world in all its beauty and ferocity. His epic journey takes him from Jamaica to Harvard; from Great Plains slaughterhouses to the Mexican desert; and from the sea to the Alps. Marshall is eventually drawn to Israel to confront the circumstance of his birth in a crucible of war, magic, suffering, and grace. We first meet Marshall among the mortally wounded Israeli soldiers who are being transferred to Haifa during the Yom Kippur War. From there we follow Marshall—along with his memories and dreams—as he reconstructs his life, galvanizing strength through all that he has learned, suffered, and hoped. “Superb...A first-rate odyssey, full of insight and humor and hard-earned truths”—San Francisco Chronicle

Returning home after serving World War II to run his family business in New York, a paratrooper falls in love with a young heiress and actress he meets on the State Island ferry.

In a rare collaboration, bestselling authors Helprin and Van Allsburg worked for nearly a decade on this ambitious, multi-generational trilogy that pits the power of love and devotion against dark forces of greed and suppression. For the first time, this hardcover volume collects all three of Helprin''s contemporary fantasies —Swan Lake,The Veil of Snows, andA City in Winter— along with Van Allsburg''s sensitively wrought illustrations from the original editions. 39 full-color plates.

Present an argument in defense of private property in the age of digital culture, sharing observations about how significant differences in generation values has compromised ownership rights and copyright protections.

An old man recounts the raucous adventure of his life through war, obsession and the 20th century in this “rapturous and melancholy new novel” (The New York Times). An old American who lives in Brazil is writing his memoirs. Call him Oscar Progresso—or whatever else you like. He sits in a mountain garden in Niterói, overlooking the ocean. As he reminisces and writes, placing the pages carefully in his antproof case, an epic adventure unfolds. We learn that he was a World War II ace who was shot down twice, an investment banker who met with popes and presidents, and a man who was never not in love. But that doesn’t begin to cover our narrator’s immense and fascinating journey through the 20th century. He was also the thief of the century, a murderer, and a protector of the innocent. All his life he waged a valiant, losing, one-man battle against the world’s most insidious enslaver: coffee. The acclaimed author of Winter’s Tale and A soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin now offers “a tour de force that combines adventure, romance and an overview of the 20th century into a bittersweet narrative” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

A New York Times bestseller by Mark Helprin, author of Winter''s Tale, which is now a major motion picture starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Russell Crowe, William Hurt, and Jennifer Connelly “Freddy and Fredericka is a vast, sprawling book of Homeric proportions and design in which Helprin exploits to the fullest his powers of invention as well as a lesser known talent for comedy.” —Bookreporter.com Mark Helprin’s legions of devoted readers cherish his timeless novels and short stories, which are uplifting in their conviction of the goodness and resilience of the human spirit. Freddy and Fredericka—a brilliantly refashioned fairy tale and a magnificently funny farce—only seems like a radical departure of form, for behind the laughter, Helprin speaks of leaps of faith and second chances, courage and the primacy of love. Helprin’s latest work, an extraordinarily funny allegory about a most peculiar British royal family, is immensely mocking of contemporary monarchy and yet deeply sympathetic to the individuals caught in its lonely absurdities.

A dazzling collection of short stories by Mark Helprin, bestselling author of Winter''s Tale, which is now a major motion picture starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Russell Crowe, William Hurt, and Jennifer Connelly The Pacific and Other Stories is a collection of sixteen stories that display the remarkable scope, incomparable wit, and deft prose that have come to be Mark Helprin''s signature. A British paratrooper jumps into occupied territory; the 1958 New York Yankees gain an unexpected teammate in a puny, teenaged Hasidic Jew; a September 11th widow receives an astonishing gift from the contractor working on her new apartment—these and other stories exhibit the constantly changing variety of the ocean itself, the peaks and troughs of life. Lighthearted, glittering fables are met with starker tales that sound the depths of sacrifice and duty. The Pacific and Other Stories is a resplendent, powerful collection of lasting substance and emotional import.

An Italian septuagenarian recounts his life before and after World War I in this novel from the author of Paris in the Present Tense. For Alessandro Giullani, the young son of a prosperous Roman lawyer, golden trees shimmer in the sun beneath a sky of perfect blue. At night, the moon is amber and the city of Rome seethes with light. He races horses across the country to the sea, and in the Alps, he practices the precise and sublime art of mountain climbing. At the ancient university in Bologna he is a student of painting and the science of beauty. And he falls in love. His is a world of adventure and dreams, of music, storm, and the spirit. Then the Great War intervenes. Half a century later, in August of 1964, Alessandro, a white-haired professor, still tall and proud, finds himself unexpectedly on the road with an illiterate young factory worker. As they walk toward Monte Prato, a village seventy kilometers distant, the old man tells the story of his life. How he became a soldier. A hero. A prisoner. A deserter. A wanderer in the hell that claimed Europe. And how he tragically lost one family and gained another. The boy is dazzled by the action and envious of the richness and color of the story, and realizes that the old man''s magnificent tale of love and war is more than a tale: it is the recapitulation of his life, his reckoning with mortality, and above all, a love song for his family. “[A] testimony to the indomitable human spirit. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal

The story of a daring girl''s quest to avenge the murder of her parents.

Driven to avenge the murder of her royal parents and reclaim their lost kingdom, a daring young princess confronts the city''s conqueror, the Usurper, with the aid of two unlikely rebels. 150,000 first printing. $150,000 ad/promo.