Baker & Taylor In 1865, the preparations of the Dante Club--led by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes--to release the first translation of Dante's "The Divine Comedy" are threatened by a series of murders that re-create episodes from "Inferno."
Baker & Taylor In 1865, the preparations of the Dante Club--whose members include Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes--to release the first translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy are threatened by a series of murders that re-create episodes from the Inferno. Reprint. 100,000 first printing.
Random House, Inc. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ⢠Before The Dante Chamber, there was The Dante Club: âan ingenious thriller that . . . brings Dante Alighieriâs Inferno to vivid, even unsettling life.ââThe Boston Globe
âWith intricate plots, classical themes, and erudite characters . . . whatâs not to love?ââDan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code and Origin
Boston, 1865. The literary geniuses of the Dante Clubâpoets and Harvard professors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell, along with publisher J. T. Fieldsâare finishing Americaâs first translation of The Divine Comedy. The powerful Boston Brahmins at Harvard College are fighting to keep Dante in obscurity, believing the infiltration of foreign superstitions to be as corrupting as the immigrants arriving at Boston Harbor.
But as the members of the Dante Club fight to keep a sacred literary cause alive, their plans fall apart when a series of murders erupts through Boston and Cambridge. Only this small group of scholars realizes that the gruesome killings are modeled on the descriptions of Hellâs punishments from Danteâs Inferno. With the lives of the Boston elite and Danteâs literary future in the New World at stake, the members of the Dante Club must find the killer before the authorities discover their secret.
Praise for The Dante Club
âIngenious . . . [Matthew Pearl] keeps this mystery sparkling with erudition.ââJanet Maslin, The New York Times
âNot just a page-turner but a beguiling look at the U.S. in an era when elites shaped the course of learning and publishing. With this story of the Dante Clubâs own descent into hell, Mr. Pearlâs book will delight the Dante novice and expert alike.ââThe Wall Street Journal
â[Pearl] ably meshes the . . . literary analysis with a suspenseful plot and in the process humanizes the historical figures. . . . A divine mystery.ââPeople (Page-turner of the Week)
âAn erudite and entertaining account of Danteâs violent entrance into the American canon.ââLos Angeles Times
âA hell of a first novel . . . The Dante Club delivers in spades. . . . Pearl has crafted a work that maintains interest and drips with nineteenth-century atmospherics.ââSan Francisco Chronicle
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