History of Lady Sophia Sternheim

Christa Baguss Britt is Professor of German at the American School of International Management in Glendale, Arizona.

• ForewordKatherine R. GoodmanCritical Introduction and Textual HistoryIntroductionNotes on the IntroductionSelected BibliographyAppendix: Sophie von LaRoche's WorksThe Translation of the NovelNotes on the Translation

"This novel, phenomenally popular in its day, shows that historians of the novel have forgotten that women did write, did compose bestsellers, and that — contrary to Hawthorne's complaint — they were not all 'damned scribbling women' but Fanny Burneys and Maria Edgeworths, i.e., skillful fictionalizers of their own times. Thus, Professor Britt's translation will help rectify the canon. The novel also, as she points out, is a female Bildungsroman, and, I suppose most interesting to me, shows a transition from the epistolary to the I-narrative. Professor Britt has recovered for those who do not read eighteenth-century German comfortably a genuine literary experience which is also a document of the enlightened female consciousness of the times. " — Marilyn Gaddis Rose, State University of New York, Binghamton"What I like most about this book is the fluent, readable, and faithful translation; it makes available a major novel of the eighteenth century. The translation renders the tone of the original, its nuances, and flavor. The original novel is a fascinating period piece and has been translated with care, precision, and a superb feeling for the original language as well as for modern English." — Barbara Becker-Cantarino, The Ohio State University