The House of the Spirits Trilogy

by Isabel Allende 3 books in this series

The House of the Spirits Trilogy forms a connected Chilean family saga across more than a century. Daughter of Fortune begins in nineteenth-century Valparaíso and the California Gold Rush; Portrait in Sepia follows the next generation through war, migration and memory; The House of the Spirits carries related families into the social conflict and military coup of the twentieth century.

The novels can be read independently, but shared characters and family lines connect the Sommers, del Valle and Trueba households. Together they examine freedom, inheritance, class, gender and political violence from 1848 to 1973, moving between private memory and the larger history of Chile.

Reading order

Books in this series (3 books)

#1 – Daughter of Fortune

Isabel Allende

Valparaíso, 1843. Eliza Sommers has been raised inside the protected British household of her adoptive family, but her attachment to the impoverished Joaquín Andieta draws her beyond the expectations imposed on a respectable young woman. When Joaquín leaves Chile for the California goldfields, Eliza secretly follows…

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#2 – Portrait in Sepia

Isabel Allende

Aurora del Valle grows up in the wealthy San Francisco household of her grandmother Paulina, carrying memories of an early trauma she cannot consciously recover. Photography gives her a means of observing other lives, but marriage and return to Chile expose the gaps in the family…

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#3 – The House of the Spirits

Isabel Allende

The Trueba family rises from a decaying estate into wealth and political influence as patriarch Esteban tries to control land, household and descendants. Clara’s spiritual gifts, Blanca’s forbidden relationship and Alba’s later political commitments resist his authority across several generations. Set in a country recognisably based…

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