Cecile. - Softcover

Fontane, Theodor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3548240364 ISBN 13: 9783548240367

Publisher: Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH & Co. KG / Ullstein Tas, 1996

Synopsis

Theodor Fontane, chronicler of post-1871 Berlin in its new role as capital of a Germany unified for the first time in modern history, lifted the German nineteenth-century novel from provincialism to the European mainstream, and is now regarded as one of the outstanding German novelists. English translations of several of his works have appeared, but none hitherto of Cecile (1887), first of a brilliant trio of female portraits culminating in Effi Briest (1895). The Baroness von St Arnaud; a delicate beauty married to a retired army officer who neglects her, is a tantalising mystery to the much-travelled civil engineer von Gordon who makes her acquaintance at the fashionable spa of Thale in the Harz Mountains. The reader's curiosity, too, is more and more strongly aroused as a story of mutual sexual attraction unfolds. When the scene shifts to the bustling world of the capital and the sharply caricatured reactionary high society in which the St Arnauds move, Cecile's admirer's discovery of her past precipitates a grim climax. Fontane was in love with his female characters 'for their human qualities, that is, for their weaknesses and sins', as he put it. His commitment to female values in a changing but still starkly male-dominated society is conveyed in virtuoso handling of conversation and endlessly subtle and ironic depiction of Prussian attitudes.

About this title

About the Author

Th. Fontane wurde am 30.12.1819 in Neuruppin geboren. Er stammte aus einer in Preußen heimisch gewordenen Hugenottenfamilie. Der Vater war Apotheker. Fontane besuchte das Gymnasium Neuruppin (1832) und die Gewerbeschule Berlin (1833). 1836-1840 Apothekerlehre in Berlin. Fontane gab 1849 seinen Apothekerberuf auf; er arbeitete dann mit Unterbrechung bis 1859 als freier Mitarbeiter im Büro eines Ministeriums. Er lebte von 1855-1859 in England als Berichterstatter. Von 1860 bis 1870 arbeitete er als Redakteur der Berliner "Kreuz-Zeitung". 1870-1889 Theaterkritiker bei der "Vossischen Zeitung". 1876 Sekretär der Akademie der Künste Berlin und freier Schriftsteller. 1894 Dr. phil. h.c. Fontane starb am 20.9.1898 in Berlin.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH & Co. KG / Ullstein Tas
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 3548240364
• ISBN 13: 9783548240367
• Binding: Paperback