Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: Women Writers, Warriors, and Travelers: The French Revolution in German Literature
Chapter 1: Domestic Fiction, Bourgeois Tragedy, and Gothic Endings: Therese Huber’s Die Familie Seldorf (1795-96)
Chapter 2: Historical Fiction: Caroline de la Motte Fouqué’s Das Heldenmädchen aus der Vendée (1816)
Chapter 3: Staging Historical Tragedy: Christine Westphalen’s Charlotte Corday (1804)
Chapter 4: Autobiographical Petition: The Lebensbeschreibung (1821) of Regula Engel, the “Swiss Amazon”
Chapter 5: Robinsonade as Encyclopedia: Sophie von La Roche’s Erscheinungen am See Oneida (1798)
Chapter 6: Bildungsroman of America: Henriette Frölich’s Virginia oder die Kolonie von Kentucky (1820)
Conclusion: Fictions of History
Works Cited
Index
About the Author

About the Author

Stephanie M. Hilger is associate professor of comparative literature, German, and gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Reviews

Focusing on the period from 1795 to 1820, Hilger discusses novels by six women—Therese Huber, Caroline de la Motte Fouqué, Christine Westphalen, Regula Engel, Sophie von la Roche, and Henriette Frölich. These women's works were trivialized by their contemporaries, including Goethe, or were difficult to obtain (they are now available in electronic form). Each of the novels Hilger discusses criticizes exclusionary Enlightenment thinking, failed ideals of fraternity from the French Revolution, and the lack of social welfare for widows or victims of war. In discussing Sophie von La Roche’s Erscheinungen am see oneida (1798), a novel about noble émigrés living alone on an island in Lake Oneida (in upstate New York), Hilger reveals that European and Native American identities remain entirely stereotypical and hopelessly constricting. The prejudices of the society from which people wished to escape persist in a 'new' world that fails to foster intellectual, social, or gender freedom. Hilger also discusses the form, structure, and narrative voices of these novels, their previous commentators, and further avenues for research. Supporting her argument with an extensive bibliography and notes, Hilger offers fruitful approaches to these and similar works, demonstrating how such criticism can help redefine the literary canon. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above.
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