Mistress of Mistresses is the first novel in the Zimiamvian Trilogy by Eric Rücker Eddison. It centers on political intrigues between the nobles and rulers of the Three Kingdoms of Rerek, Meszria and Fingiswold, following the death of King Mezentius, an extraordinary ruler who has held sway over three kingdoms mainly through force of character. Dissolution of the realm seems certain as alliances are formed and begin to intrigue against each other. The character of Lessingham is an unknown quantity, with a strong character of his own, but the reader is kept uncertain over what impact Lessingham can have over the future of the realm until the novel's close.
First of the Zimiamvian Trilogy to be published, Mistress of Mistresses is chronologically the last novel in the series.
Famous quotes containing the words mistress of and/or mistress:
“See the kind seed-receiving earth
To every grain affords a birth:
On her no showers unwelcome fall,
Her willing womb retains ‘em all,
And shall my Caelia be confined?
No, live up to thy mighty mind,
And be the mistress of Mankind!”
—John Wilmot, 2d Earl Of Rochester (1647–1680)
“But the nature of our civilized minds is so detached from the senses, even in the vulgar, by abstractions corresponding to all the abstract terms our languages abound in, and so refined by the art of writing, and as it were spiritualized by the use of numbers, because even the vulgar know how to count and reckon, that it is naturally beyond our power to form the vast image of this mistress called “Sympathetic Nature.””
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)