The Lady and the Unicorn, Tracy Chevalier
The Lady and the Unicorn, Tracy Chevalier
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The Lady and the Unicorn

Author: Tracy Chevalier

Narrator: Robert Blumenfeld, Terry Donnelly

Unabridged: 7 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 01/01/2004

Synopsis

A tour de force of history and imagination, The Lady and the Unicorn is Tracy Chevalier’s answer to the mystery behind one of the art world’s great masterpieces—a set of bewitching medieval tapestries that hangs today in the Cluny Museum in Paris. They appear to portray the seduction of a unicorn, but the story behind their making is unknown—until now.

Paris, 1490.  A shrewd French nobleman commissions six lavish tapestries celebrating his rising status at Court. He hires the charismatic, arrogant, sublimely talented Nicolas des Innocents to design them. Nicolas creates havoc among the women in the house—mother and daughter, servant, and lady-in-waiting—before taking his designs north to the Brussels workshop where the tapestries are to be woven. There, master weaver Georges de la Chapelle risks everything he has to finish the tapestries—his finest, most intricate work—on time for his exacting French client. The results change all their lives—lives that have been captured in the tapestries, for those who know where to look.

In The Lady and the Unicorn, Tracy Chevalier weaves fact and fiction into a beautiful, timeless, and intriguing literary tapestry—an extraordinary story exquisitely told.

About The Author

Tracy Chevalier grew up in Washington, DC. She received her BA in English literature from Oberlin College before moving to London in 1984. She later attended the University of East Anglia in Norwich, where she received her MA in creative writing. Her works include The Virgin Blue, The Girl With a Pearl Earring, and Remarkable Creatures.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Morticia on November 04, 2010

I hope someone has pointed out to Tracy Chevalier that if you are going to have seven different narrators for your story, you really need to give each of them a distinctive voice. This is a major failing of this novel, which I found plodding and flat, and lacking in any genuine exploration of charac......more

Goodreads review by Dafne on August 18, 2013

Forse uno dei migliori libri della Chevalier. L’autrice possiede la capacità di farti immergere nel romanzo attraverso la descrizione dell’epoca storica, dell’analisi dei personaggi, delle loro vicende, degli arazzi, dei colori, dei profumi. Tramite la descrizione molto accurata e molto interessante......more

Goodreads review by Gary on February 05, 2021

I enjoyed this book but did' not care much for the protagonist, the womanising and arrogant artist , Nicholas DE Innocents, but this is also about a noble Parisian family and a Brussels tradesman and his family in the late 15th century. An essay on relations between men and woman at they type, and a......more

Goodreads review by Blodeuedd on February 22, 2017

Everyone was kind of an idiot in this one. We have the stuck up nobleman who thinks he is all that. We have the artist who thinks he is god's gift to women. Ugh, what an ass. I wanted to slap him. The nobleman's stupid daughter, God, what an idiot. Then we moved on to Brussels to see the tapestry being......more

Quotes

"Tracy Chevalier has invented another juicy backstory to a great work of art…a lively, sexy, and thoroughly entertaining novel." —Entertainment Weekly"Subtly rendered, surprisingly complex characters…a novel notable for its human warmth." —The New York Times Book Review"Tracy Chevalier has spun a story as richly detailed as the medieval tapestries on which it’s based…a fascinating novel." —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel"Tracy Chevalier's approach to fiction is so methodical that she threatens to turn writing about art into science." —The New York Times

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