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HOME LIFE IN GERMANY (CHAUTAUQUA HOME READING SERIES) by Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick, hardcover, no dust jacket, stated 3rd edition of book first published in 1908. BOOK CONDITION: Fair. The text block is in very good condition with no tears, dog ears, or marks. Between pages 134 and 135, a crack is beginning to show along the spine, but it has not pulled away. The pages are age-tanned as are the endpapers. There is no bookplate nor signature of a prior owner. This is not a library book nor a remainder. The tan cloth boards are in poor condition (soiled and stained, foxing on back cover, corner- and spine-bumping. 7 3/8 x 4 5/8, 337 pages, 14 ounces, XX Contents: Children, schools, the education of the poor, the Backfisch, the student, Riehl on women, the old and the new, girlhood, marriages, the householder, Housewives, servants, food, shops and markets, expenses of life, hospitality, German Sundays, sports and games, inns and restaurants, life in lodgings, summer resorts, peasant life, how the poor live, Berlin, odds and ends. XX [About the author] Cecily Sidgwick (1854-1934) was a prolific and popular novelist and writer, who was based in Lamorna, West Cornwall, England, from March 1906 until her death in 1934, during which time she, and her philosopher husband, Alfred, were integral members of the artistic community. During her career, Cecily, who until 1899 used the pseudonym, Mrs Alfred Dean, and then was known as Mrs Alfred Sidgwick, published over forty books, with a range of different publishers. The vast majority of these were romantic novels, but they clearly had a large following and also received some critical acclaim. The Spectator?s book reviewer was a particular fan, "A volume from the pen of Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick is always welcome, so alert is her intelligence, so keen her observation, so crisp and clear-cut her style." Whilst now Cecily?s novels are normally, and understandably, classed as lightweight romantic fiction, for they invariably deal principally with the romantic escapades of a range of young girls, they not only have remained eminently readable, because of her well-polished style and understated humor, but also contain much of social historical interest. Firstly, albeit she was born and brought up in London, Cecily?s parents were from German Jewish families and Cecily, throughout her life, demonstrated an intense interest not only in the plight of the Jews in various countries, but also in all things German. A large number of her books, therefore, feature German settings and German characters and she is forever comparing the attitudes of Germans on various aspects of life to those of the English. She also appreciates at a very early juncture - by 1901 - the growing hostility towards England in Germany and seems to realize, and take advantage of, the obsession that both nations had about each other in the lead-up to the War. Clearly, her strong German connections, which were emphasized by the publication of two non-fiction works on Germany in 1908-9, will have made wartime difficult for her, and she responded by producing ever grosser caricatures of Germans in her wartime output.
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