''The Manuscript Found in Saragossa'' (; also known in English as ''The Saragossa Manuscript'') is a frame-tale novel written in French at the turn of 18th and 19th centuries by the

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

author Count

Jan Potocki Count Jan Potocki (; 8 March 1761 – 23 December 1815) was a Polish nobleman, ethnologist, linguist, traveller and author of the Enlightenment period, whose life and exploits made him a celebrated figure in Poland. He is known chiefly for his pi ...

(1761–1815). It is narrated from the time of the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

, and depicts events several decades earlier,Count Jan Potocki: ''The Saragossa Manuscript.''
Book review by Anthony Campbell (2001). Retrieved September 22, 2011.The Mystical Count Potocki. ''Fortean Times.''
Retrieved September 22, 2011. during the reign of King Philip V (r. 1700–46). The novel was adapted into a 1965 Polish-language film, '' The Saragossa Manuscript'' ( pl, Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie), by director

Wojciech Has Wojciech Jerzy Has (1 April 1925, Kraków – 3 October 2000, Łódź) was a Polish film director, screenwriter and film producer. Early life and studies Wojciech Jerzy Has was born in Kraków. Has himself was agnostic. However, his family ...

, with

Zbigniew Cybulski Zbigniew Hubert Cybulski (; 3 November 1927 – 8 January 1967) was a Polish actor, one of the best-known and most popular personalities of the post-World War II history of Poland. Life Zbigniew Cybulski was born 3 November 1927 in a small v ...

as Alfonse van Worden.

Plot summary

''The Manuscript Found in Saragossa'' collects intertwining stories, all of them set in whole or in part in Spain, with a large and colorful cast of Romani, thieves, inquisitors, a cabbalist, a geometer, the cabbalist's beautiful sister, two Moorish princesses (Emina and Zubeida) and others that the brave, perhaps foolhardy, Walloon Guard Alphonse van Worden meets, imagines or reads about in the

Sierra Morena The Sierra Morena is one of the main systems of mountain ranges in Spain. It stretches for 450 kilometres from east to west across the south of the Iberian Peninsula, forming the southern border of the ''Meseta Central'' plateau and providi ...

mountains of 18th-century Spain while en route to

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

. Recounted to the narrator over the course of sixty-six days, the novel's stories quickly overshadow van Worden's frame story. The bulk of the stories revolve around the

Gypsy The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...

chief Avadoro, whose story becomes a frame story itself. Eventually the narrative focus moves again toward van Worden's frame story and a conspiracy involving an underground Muslim society, revealing the connections and correspondences between the hundred or so stories told over the novel's sixty-six days. The stories cover a wide range of genres and subjects, including the gothic, the

picaresque The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish, but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corru ...

, the erotic, the historical, the moral and the philosophic; and as a whole, the novel reflects Potocki's far-ranging interests, especially his deep fascination with

secret societies A secret society is a club or an organization whose activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence a ...

, the supernatural and " Oriental" cultures. The novel's stories-within-stories sometimes reach several levels of depth, and characters and themes — a few prominent themes being honor, disguise, metamorphosis and

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agre ...

— recur and change shape throughout. Because of its rich and varied interlocking structure, the novel has been favorably compared to many celebrated literary antecedents such as the ancient BCE '' Jatakas'' and '' Panchatantra'' as well as the medieval '' Arabian Nights'' and ''

Decameron ''The Decameron'' (; it, label=Italian, Decameron or ''Decamerone'' ), subtitled ''Prince Galehaut'' (Old it, Prencipe Galeotto, links=no ) and sometimes nicknamed ''l'Umana commedia'' ("the Human comedy", as it was Boccaccio that dubbed Dan ...

''.

Textual history

The first "days" of ''The Manuscript Found in Saragossa'' were initially published apart from the rest of the novel in 1805, while the stories comprising the Gypsy chief's tale were added later. The novel was written incrementally and was left in its final form—though never exactly completed—at the time of the author's suicide in 1815. Potocki composed the book entirely in French. Sections of the original French-language manuscripts were later lost, but have been back-translated into French from a Polish translation that had been made in 1847 by Edmund Chojecki from a complete French-language copy, now lost. The first integral French-language version of the work, based on several French-language manuscripts and on Chojecki's 1847 Polish translation, was edited by René Radrizzani and published in 1989 by the renowned French publishing house of

José Corti José Corti is a bookshop and publishing house located in Paris, France, and was founded in 1925. It is named after its founder, José Corticchiato (14 January 1895 – 25 December 1984). José Corticchiato started his business by publishing the ...

. Translations of the novel from the French rely, for the missing sections, on Chojecki's Polish translation. The most recent English-language edition, published by

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Leuven,

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, as part of a critical scholarly edition of the Complete Works of Potocki. Unlike Radrizzani's 1989 edition of the ''Manuscript Found in Saragossa'', Rosset and Triaire's edition is based solely on Potocki's French-language manuscripts found in libraries in France, Poland (in particular, previously unknown autograph pieces that they discovered in

Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint Joh ...

), Spain and Russia, as well as in the private collection of Potocki's heirs. Rosset and Triaire identified two versions of the novel: one unfinished, of 1804, published in 1805; and the full version of 1810, which appears to have been completely reconceived in comparison to the 1804 version. Whereas the first version has a lighter, more sceptical tone, the second one tends toward a darker, more religious mood. In view of the differences between the two versions, the 1804 and 1810 versions have been published as two separate books; paperback editions were issued in early 2008 by Flammarion.

Film, television and theatre

In 1965, director

adapted the novel into a Polish-language black-and-white film '' The Saragossa Manuscript'' ( Polish title: ''Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie''), starring

. The film was released in a full-length Polish version (180 minutes) and in shortened versions in other countries (152 minutes in the United States, and 125 in the United Kingdom). The film was admired by many 1960s

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

figures, notably Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, who financed a complete print, as well as

Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, inclu ...

, Francis Ford Coppola, and

Luis Buñuel Luis Buñuel Portolés (; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish-Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico, and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians, and directors to be one of the greatest and ...

. Neil Gaiman has referenced the book and film, in passing, in at least three different works. The film was shot near Częstochowa and in

Wrocław Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

, Poland. A detailed outline of the movie's plot is available online. In 1973, the novel was adapted into a television mini-series in France, under the title "La Duchesse d'Avila", with Jean Blaise as Van Worden. The late Vi Marriott adapted the book for The Cherub Theatre Company, which was performed by them under the title 'Ten Days A-Maze' and won several awards at the 1997 Edinburgh Fringe.* A later adaption is the Romanian-language play ''Saragosa, 66 de Zile'' (''Saragossa, 66 Days''), written and directed by Alexandru Dabija in 1999 at the Odeon Theatre Bucharest, and first represented at The Theater der Welt Festival in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

. Christine Mary Dunford adapted an English-language stage version from Ian Maclean's translation of the novel. Subsequently, the novel (and film) acted themselves as a frame-story for an episode of the Italian TV series '' Inspector Montalbano''. In 2001, composer

José Evangelista José Evangelista (5 August 1943 – 10 January 2023) was a Spanish composer and music educator who was based in Montreal, Canada. He was professor of composition at the Université de Montréal from 1979 to 2009. A member of the Canadian Leagu ...

premiered the opera "Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse" on a libretto by Alexis Nouss based on the novel. In 2017, the Italian filmmaker Alberto Rondalli adapted the book in a movie titled '' Agadah''.

Characters

* Alphonse van Worden, the narrator * The Sheikh Gomelez, mysterious focus of conspiracy * Emina and Zubeida, Tunisian sisters * The Hermit * Pacheco, possessed servant of the hermit * Rabbi Zadok ben Mamoun aka Don Pedro de Uzeda, a cabbalist * Doña Rebecca Uzeda, the cabbalist's sister * Ahasuerus, the

Wandering Jew The Wandering Jew is a mythical immortal man whose legend began to spread in Europe in the 13th century. In the original legend, a Jew who taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion was then cursed to walk the Earth until the Second Coming. Th ...

* Don Pedro Velásquez, a geometer * Señor Avadoro aka Pandesowna, a gypsy chief * Don Toledo, an amorous knight * Busqueros, a nuisance * Zoto's brothers, a pair of bandits hanging from the gallows. Zoto himself is hiding somewhere in the nearby mountains.

Notes

External links

Stories Within Stories: An Outline of The Manuscript Found in Saragossa
''Looking for the Manuscript Found in Saragossa'', accessed 6 February 2015.

, ''Looking for the Manuscript Found in Saragossa'', accessed 18 April 2015. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Manuscript Found in Saragossa 1815 novels French-language novels Polish Gothic novels Polish novels Picaresque novels Novels set in Spain Poland–Spain relations 19th-century Polish novels Polish novels adapted into films