Country France Publication date 1976
1977 (English) Pages 187 Originally published 1976 Page count 187 OCLC 3965973 | Language French Media type Print (Hardcover) ISBN 0-8149-0788-1 Genre Short story | |
Publishers Groupe Flammarion, Vanguard Press (English) Pierre Boulle books The Bridge over the River Kwai, Les Oreilles de jungle, Desperate games, Le jardin de Kanashima, Planet of the Apes | ||
The Marvelous Palace And Other Stories (French: 'Histoires Perfides') is a collection of short stories by French author Pierre Boulle, published in French in 1976 and in English in 1977. The English language edition is translated by Margaret Giovanelli. The collection contains six stories, all thematically related, and presented in the voice of a centenarian story-teller from the Orient.
The collection includes an introduction, in which the narrator introduces the storyteller, who is generally referred to as "Old Man." After the introduction, each of the six short stories is narrated by the Old Man:
The stories are all recountings of tales from the Old Man's distant past as a minister of "the Religion of Doubt" in the far off Kingdom of Shandong. Each story presents a brief moral dilemma, usually with a surprise ending.