Summary
Mathilda is a dark, emotionally intense novella that follows the tragic life of Mathilda, a young woman raised in near-isolation after her mother’s death and her father’s abandonment. When her father finally returns years later, their joyful reunion takes a devastating turn: he confesses an incestuous love for his daughter.
Shocked and emotionally shattered, Mathilda flees to the wilderness, where she befriends a melancholy young poet named Woodville.
Yet her trauma and guilt over her father’s eventual suicide consume her, and she records her story as a written confession before her own slow, self-imposed death.