Two Novellas
Theodor Fontane · 1996
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About the book
Fontane's novella The Woman Taken in Adultery (1882) is remarkable not least for its portrayal, in wealthy, stultifying Berlin society in the 1880s, of an adultery with a happy ending. The story was inspired by a celebrated contemporary scandal and tells of Melanie van der Straaten and her affair with Rubehn, the young protege of Melanie's eccentric and good-humoured husband Ezel. By contrast The Poggenpuhl Family (1896), a late masterpiece, centres on a birthday party given for Frau von Poggenpuhl and brilliantly evokes the lives of an aristocratic Berlin family struggling in genteel poverty. Theodor Fontane is one of nineteenth-century Germany's foremost stylists, and in these two short fictions his vivid portraiture and unforced dialogue, his mastery of understatement and emotional nuance are found to perfection.
Book details
- Year
- 1996
- Publisher
- Penguin Classics
- Editions
- 3
- Pages
- 272
- ISBN
- 9780140435245
Data source: Wikidata
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