Anneliese's House
By (author) Lou Andreas-Salomé Edited and translated by Mr. Frank Beck, Raleigh Whitinger
Publication date:
15 June 2021Length of book:
304 pagesPublisher
Camden HouseDimensions:
229x152mmISBN-13: 9781800102378
The first English translation of a presciently modern portrayal of emerging feminist sensibilities in a nineteenth-century family, by one of Germany's leading pre-First World War writers.
Best known now for her involvement with Nietzsche, Rilke, and Freud, Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861-1937) first became famous for fiction and criticism that engaged provocatively with "the woman question." In recent years, the author's literary treatment of the challenges facing women in a patriarchal society has awakened renewed interest. Anneliese's House is the first English translation of her last and most masterful work of fiction, the 1921 Das Haus: Familiengeschichte vom Ende vorigen Jahrhunderts (The House: A Family Story from the End of the Nineteenth Century). Anneliese Branhardt, the book's protagonist, long ago renounced a career as a pianist to raise a family with her physician husband, Frank. She worries about her son Balduin - an aspiring poet modeled on Rilke - and about her equally free-spirited daughter Gitta. She is haunted by memories of a daughter who died in childhood and anxious about a risky, late pregnancy. With her domestic harmony threatened by her own stirrings of autonomy and her children's growing independence, Anneliese finds the future both frightening and promising. The edition is fully annotated, with a critical introduction and bibliography.
Best known now for her involvement with Nietzsche, Rilke, and Freud, Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861-1937) first became famous for fiction and criticism that engaged provocatively with "the woman question." In recent years, the author's literary treatment of the challenges facing women in a patriarchal society has awakened renewed interest. Anneliese's House is the first English translation of her last and most masterful work of fiction, the 1921 Das Haus: Familiengeschichte vom Ende vorigen Jahrhunderts (The House: A Family Story from the End of the Nineteenth Century). Anneliese Branhardt, the book's protagonist, long ago renounced a career as a pianist to raise a family with her physician husband, Frank. She worries about her son Balduin - an aspiring poet modeled on Rilke - and about her equally free-spirited daughter Gitta. She is haunted by memories of a daughter who died in childhood and anxious about a risky, late pregnancy. With her domestic harmony threatened by her own stirrings of autonomy and her children's growing independence, Anneliese finds the future both frightening and promising. The edition is fully annotated, with a critical introduction and bibliography.
This translation makes Andreas-Salomé's last novel accessible to English speakers and offers an important addition to the growing body of critical work on the author. [...] With Anneliese's House, Beck and Whitinger pave the way for broadening insight into the emancipatory significance of her fiction.