Mathilde Moehring

Theodor Fontane's novel Mathilde Möhring was first published in 1906. It is an English translation of his late, posthumously published novel. The book addresses issues such as gender roles and marriage that still resonate today. The novel follows the protagonist Mathilde, who is intelligent and energetic but plain and pragmatic. The book is highly evocative of the politics of class, gender, and religion in late 19th-century Germany and is known for its humor and pathos.

Format: Hardback
Length: 168 pages
Publication date: 10 October 2023
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Theodor Fontane's late novel, Mathilde Möhring, was first published in 1906. The novel features the eponymous, complex heroine and addresses issues regarding gender roles and marriage that still resonate today. Fontane initially hesitated to publish the novel because he believed it was too subtle and spare for the popular taste of the day. However, the themes of corrosive economic precarity, the ambivalence of marriage for women, and the burden of work expectations for men resonate with readers today.

Mathilde and her mother cling to the underside of the lower middle class by renting out a room in their small Berlin apartment. Their new tenant, a man named Paul, seems to offer a path to middle-class security, so Mathilde applies her shrewd understanding of class mores to pursue him. The result is both triumphant and catastrophic.

Mathilde is the last among Fontane's powerfully drawn female protagonists. She is intelligent and energetic but plain and deeply pragmatic. We follow Mathilde from the bustling metropolis of Berlin to Woldenstein, a sleepy backwater town she single-handedly transforms, and back. Unknown in the English-speaking world, this compact work has the humor and pathos familiar to readers of Fontane, and is powerfully evocative of the politics of class, gender, and religion in late 19th-century Germany.

An introduction, afterword, and extensive endnotes richly contextualize the work for both general readers and students of literature, history, gender studies, and German studies.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781640141773