''Leila; or, The Siege of Granada'' is a historical romance novel by

Edward Bulwer-Lytton Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, PC (25 May 180318 January 1873) was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secret ...

published in 1838. The novel is set in

Granada Granada (,, DIN 31635, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the fo ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

at the end of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

— beginning in the summer of 1491. It was originally published in an expensive form, with many engraved illustrations. The preface to the 1860 edition explains that the novel has been less popular than his other works of fiction due to the prejudice against literary works that are thought to owe their value, in part, to the illustrations.

Plot

In ''Leila'', as the double title suggests, there is a double storyline: the domestic story of the daughter (Leila) and the public story of the nation. Leila's father, Almamen, switches allegiances between Christian and Moor in what eventually becomes the famous

Siege of Granada The Granada War ( es, Guerra de Granada) was a series of military campaigns between 1482 and 1491 during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, against the Nasrid dynasty's Emirate of Granada. It e ...

. Almamen attempts to guard his daughter's Jewish heritage by keeping her away from her Moorish lover, Muza. He inadvertently delivers her into the hands of the Christian monarchs, and Leila is subjected to the procedures of conversion by the queen's intermediary, Donna Inez. In the double story line, the conquest of Muslim Granada runs parallel to the conversion of the Jewish Leila. The characters meet at the altar of a convent in which Leila is about to take her vows as a nun, and her father kills her. The domestic plot parallels the Christianization of Spain.

Adaptations

Giuseppe Apolloni Giuseppe Apolloni (8 April 1822 – 31 December 1889) was an Italian composer born in Vicenza, Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the m ...

L'ebreo ''L'ebreo'' (The Hebrew) is an 1855 opera by Giuseppe Apolloni to a libretto by Antonio Boni adapted from Edward Bulwer Lytton's novella ''Leila; or, The Siege of Granada'' of 1838. It premiered on 25 January 1855 at La Fenice, Venice.Udo Bermbach ...

opera

References

Novels by Edward Bulwer-Lytton 1838 novels {{1830s-novel-stub