Two French mothers, one widowed and one abandoned, raise their children Paul and Virginia side by side in a mountain valley of the Île de France, now Mauritius, far from the corruptions of European society. The innocent love that grows between the children is tested when Virginia is summoned to France. Slavery on the island is part of the setting, viewed through the humane but paternal eyes of 1788.
One of the most widely read novels of the eighteenth century, in an unabridged translation. Download the free EPUB.