A young Marquise, caught in mortal danger in the midst of a furious battle, falls into a deep swoon. She comes round moments later, however, safe within her castle and apparently unharmed, and is able to resume her life in gratitude and complacency. So when, weeks later, she is alarmed by strange periods of faintness and indisposition, the solution that suggests itself seems entirely irrational. How could the widowed young Marquise be pregnant? And what will her parents say?" "Imbued with subtle comic moments and lashed by the passionate outbursts of anger and love experienced by characters caught in a bizarre and unpredictable chain of events, The Marquise of O- is a truly Kleistian twist on the long tradition of sexual drama. Its companion pieces, The Earthquake in Chile and The Foundling, are darker and more uncompromising in flavour, demonstrating, in their flashes of horror and injustice, the full range of Kleist's art.