''The Inevitable'', ''The Law Inevitable'' or ''Inevitable'', (, literally ''Along lines of graduality'') is a novel by Dutch author

Louis Couperus Louis Marie-Anne Couperus (10 June 1863 – 16 July 1923) was a Dutch novelist and poet. His oeuvre contains a wide variety of genres: lyric poetry, psychological fiction, psychological and historical fiction, historical novels, novellas, short ...

, published in 1900. It was first translated into English by

Alexander Teixeira de Mattos Alexander Louis Teixeira de Mattos (9 April 1865 – 5 December 1921), known as Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, was a Dutch-English journalist, literary critic and publisher, who gained his greatest fame as a translator. Early life The Teixei ...

and published in New York in 1920 by Dodd Mead and Company, and in London ('The Law Inevitable', 1921) by Thornton Butterworth. Both editions were reprinted once in 1921. In 2005, a new edition was published by

Pushkin Press Pushkin Press is a British-based publishing house dedicated to publishing novels, essays, memoirs and children's books. The London-based company was founded in 1997 and is notable for publishing authors such as Stefan Zweig, Marcel Aymé, Antal ...

, New York, titled 'Inevitable' without the definite article. It tells the story of a 23-year-old Dutch divorcee, Cornélie de Retz van Loo, from an upper-class

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

background who seeks to start a new emancipated, culturally fulfilling life in Italy. In Britain the novel's erotic explicitness and the social issues it deals with provoked significant criticism upon its publication.Afterword to ''Inevitable'' by Paul Vincent

References

External links

* 1900 novels Novels by Louis Couperus Novels set in Italy Dodd, Mead & Co. books {{1900s-novel-stub