Daughter Of Fortune: A Novel By Isabel Allende

“Daughter of Fortune” by Isabel Allende is the epic story of a woman named Eliza Sommers. She is born a bastard and left on the doorstep of a rich British family’s home in Chile. She is not adopted by the brother and sister, Jeremy and Rose Summers, but is still raised like she was one of their own. Neither sibling has children of their own.
Eliza is never treated completely as if she were their daughter, but she is given a good home and education to allow her to marry into the best of families. However, along the way Eliza falls in love with a lowly clerk and follows him to California, a land where gold has just been discovered and many were rushing to this place in search of wealth.
Eliza goes to California with the help of a chinese doctor named Tao Chi’en, who also happened to be a friend of her “uncle” Captain John, who happened to be Rose and Jeremy’s brother. She is stowed upon a ship and she and Tao Chi’en sail to California. From this point, the story diverges to tell the story of Tao Chi’en and his humble beginnings. His story is epic in nature as well.
The story of Eliza is a story of a woman’s journey towards self-discovery and love. I found “Daughter of Fortune” to be wonderfully written, an epic full of adventure and romance. I found myself glued to this book as I read it from cover to cover. I highly recommend it.

Isabel Allende is a strong and beautiful woman. She would be extremely interesting to many even if she could not write. But she can write. Allende tells a story well. It is no wonder that her books have a wide audience throughout the world. She is not, however, comparable in style or technique to either Jorge Luis Borges or Gabriel Garcia Marquez as some might suggest.
DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE takes the form of a historical novel in the romantic tradition/genre. It is a straightforward narrative presented essentially chronologically from 1843 to 1853. The book’s heroine is one Eliza Sommers, born of uncertain parentage and raised by English expatriates in Chile. Eliza’s “formal” guardian is Rose Sommers – a handsome, proper, animated, and wealthy single woman with a “past.” But equally influential in Eliza’s upbringing is “Mama” Fresia – a Chilean peasant serving the Rose and her brother as cook and housekeeper.
Love is the combustible fuel that propels Eliza’s story forward and that serves to generate sub-plots and character development for all of the women in this book. And there are other dominating female presences here. There’s Paulina, Lin, and “Joe Bonecrusher,” There are men in this work, but they come across in varying degrees as unremarkable, weak, insentive, unethical, or immoral. This book is about admirable woman, plain and simple. And these women make for a good narrative.
Strength and desire take Eliza from from Valparaiso, Chile to San Francisco, California; from Victorian privilege to New World adventure; from security to danger; from merchant commerce to Gold Rush. This is highly readable historical fiction.

ISABEL ALLENDE IS THE AUTHORESS OF THE HISPANIC AMERICAN NOVEL DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE. IT IS A STORIED AND EPIC GLANCE AT AN OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME FREE FROM A RESTRICTIVE AND DANGEROUS LIASON. THE PERSONS ARE KNOWN AS MEN AND WOMEN, AND THEY MEET UP AFTER FABULOUS HOMAGES RUIN A FAIL PROOF DISGUISE. THIS STORY IS SET IN THE SOUTH AMERICAN COUNTRY OF CHILE. IT IS WORSE FOR WEAR, BUT THEY ARE SO AWESOME! IT IS A NICE NOVEL.

後記(PS)のついた 「天使の運命 英語版」再発本 (Harper, Modern Classics)です。PSの中味ですがそれは作者へのインタビュやらです。
（書棚でひとめを引くことも必要な）新刊ではなく「古典級」として買って読もうというひとへの本なわけですが、本の裁断（本文ページの縁）に効果を狙ったジャギーとういうか「製品」らしくない不揃いさがあって、表紙の草むら柄とあわせて（何年か前にでた「日本語訳版」と同じ小説とはとても思えない）デセントで独特な風情があります。
これまでが「実写ヒロインの肖像」の表紙だったわけですが、地味だけどこちらの装丁にずっと好感です。

Isabel Allende- Daughter Of Fortune
Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden
89th book read in 2020
I purchased this book used as I read two other books by Isabel that I liked and decided to buy another book by her and this book sounded very good and I also enjoyed reading it.
This book was published in 2006.
There was no problems at all with the translsation and enever had to go back and reread anything to ensure I understood what was being said.
Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaíso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquín Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of northern California. By 1849, Chileans of every stripe have fallen prey to feverish dreams of wealth. Joaquín takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune, and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides to follow him.

As we follow her spirited heroine on a perilous journey north in the hold of a ship to the rough-and-tumble world of San Francisco and northern California, we enter a world whose newly arrived inhabitants are driven mad by gold fever. A society of single men and prostitutes among whom Eliza moves–with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chien–California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence for the young Chilean. Her search for the elusive Joaquín gradually turns into another kind of journey that transforms her over time, and what began as a search for love ends up as the conquest of personal freedom.
Literary Awards
Premio de traduccion lieraria Valle inclan Nominee for Margaret Sayers Peden 2000
I would give this book 4*

Beautifully written, heartwarming and very interesting. . I’ve given it five stars and am now reading another one of Isabel’s books, called Paula.