Cecile

Fontane

ISBN 10: 0946162425 / ISBN 13: 9780946162420

Published by Angel Books, 1993

About this Item

Lovely sharp, crisp copy of one of Angel Books publications. 1st Edition (1992), dustjacket is flawed only by a faded spine, not priceclipped. Book is also superb, no inscriptions just very light toning to page edges. Please look at all the photos, and note that although the spine is faded the back cover and flaps are meant to be that way! Thanks for looking, dj will come with new prot sleeve.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1789213786205

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Cecile
• Publisher: Angel Books
• Publication Date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0946162425
• ISBN 13: 9780946162420
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Dimensions: 13.97W x 21.59H x 1.91D centimeters 13.97 centimeters width by 21.59 centimeters height by 1.91 centimeters depth
• Weight: 295 grams

About this title

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 the Author

Stanley Radcliffe retired as Senior Lecturer in German at the University of Bristol in 1988.