Scruples (novel)

Scruples is a 1978 novel by Judith Krantz. A direct sequel, Scruples Two, was published in 1992.

The novel details the life story of protagonist Wilhelmina Hunnewell Winthrop ("Billy"), as she evolves from the overweight "poor relation" in an aristocratic Boston Brahmin family to become a thin, stylish woman who is left a vast fortune by the death of her much older first husband and who founds an upscale Beverly Hills boutique called "Scruples."

Plot

Born the only child of a distinguished scientist, who is a member of the venerable Winthrop family but must work for a living, Wilhelmina is nicknamed "Honey," a diminutive of her middle name. In her infancy, her mother dies and she is raised by her distant father and a housekeeper. She grows up isolated from her extended family and, with the help of the housekeeper, turns to food for comfort. Around the time she graduates from high school, she is left $10,000 by a maiden aunt, who begs her to spend it foolishly while she is still young. In a last-ditch effort to "find herself," Honey goes to live in Paris with a French family. There, she undergoes a transformation of both body and soul, first changing her name to Billy, then losing weight, and then gaining Parisian style under the guidance of Liliane, the elegant Frenchwoman who is her hostess. She is also introduced to Edouard, Liliane's relative. It is her first sexual affair, but when the aristocratic but impecunious Edouard discovers that Billy has no money, he shows his true colors and ends the relationship.

Novel

A novel is a long narrative, normally in prose, which describes fictional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story.

The genre has also been described as possessing "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years". This view sees the novel's origins in Classical Greece and Rome, medieval, early modern romance, and the tradition of the novella. The latter, an Italian word used to describe short stories, supplied the present generic English term in the 18th century. Ian Watt, however, in The Rise of the Novel (1957) suggests that the novel first came into being in the early 18th century,

Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era; the first part of Don Quixote was published in 1605.

The romance is a closely related long prose narrative. Walter Scott defined it as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents", whereas in the novel "the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society". However, many romances, including the historical romances of Scott,Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, are also frequently called novels, and Scott describes romance as a "kindred term". Romance, as defined here, should not be confused with the genre fiction love romance or romance novel. Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo."

Moon of Israel (novel)

Moon of Israel is a novel by Rider Haggard, first published in 1918 by John Murray. The novel narrates the events of the Biblical Exodus from Egypt told from the perspective of a scribe named Ana.

Haggard dedicated his novel to Sir Gaston Maspero, a distinguished Egyptologist and director of Cairo Museum.

Adaptation

His novel was the basis of a script by Ladislaus Vajda, for film-director Michael Curtiz in his 1924 Austrian epic known as Die Sklavenkönigin, or "Queen of the Slaves".

References

External links

Novel (disambiguation)

A novel is a long prose narrative.

Novel may also refer to:

See also

Conscience

Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment that assists in distinguishing right from wrong. Moral judgment may derive from values or norms (principles and rules). In psychological terms conscience is often described as leading to feelings of remorse when a human commits actions that go against his/her moral values and to feelings of rectitude or integrity when actions conform to such norms. The extent to which conscience informs moral judgment before an action and whether such moral judgments are or should be based in reason has occasioned debate through much of the history of Western philosophy.

Religious views of conscience usually see it as linked to a morality inherent in all humans, to a beneficent universe and/or to divinity. The diverse ritualistic, mythical, doctrinal, legal, institutional and material features of religion may not necessarily cohere with experiential, emotive, spiritual or contemplative considerations about the origin and operation of conscience. Common secular or scientific views regard the capacity for conscience as probably genetically determined, with its subject probably learned or imprinted (like language) as part of a culture.

Scruples (miniseries)

Scruples is a 1980 television mini-series, based on the 1978 novel by Judith Krantz. It was produced by Warner Bros. Television and starred Lindsay Wagner.

Scruples included the final screen appearance of Gene Tierney.

Plot

Wilhemina Winthrop is a plain young woman, and a "poor relative" of the Winthrops, a wealthy Boston family. After she graduates from high school, she is given a sum of money by an aunt and goes to live in Paris with family friends. There, she undergoes a transformation of both body and soul, first losing weight, then gaining Parisian style under the guidance of Liliane, the elegant Frenchwoman who is her hostess. She is also introduced to Edouard, Liliane's nephew, who gives her the nickname "Billy." It is her first intimate love affair, but when the aristocratic but impecunious Edouard discovers that Billy is just a poor relative of the Winthrop family, he shows his true colors and ends the relationship.

Billy returns to America and moves to New York where she is hired by Ikehorn Enterprises as a secretary. During a business meeting in California, she becomes romantically involved with the wealthy CEO, Ellis Ikehorn, who is far older than she. The couple then marry and the next several years are happy ones, as Billy and Ellis live a glamorous life. However, Ellis later suffers a stroke, and Billy moves them from Manhattan to the exclusive Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles for the better climate.