Soldiering and writing in Brandenburg
Fouqué was born in Brandenburg an der Havel in 1777 into a French Huguenot family with a history of Prussian military service. His grandfather had been a general under Frederick the Great. Fouqué served as a young officer in the Rhine campaign of 1794. His fascination with chivalry thus developed alongside first-hand experience of a modern army.
In 1803 he married the writer Caroline von Rochow. Their home at Nennhausen brought him into the company of German Romantic writers, including August Wilhelm Schlegel, who helped his early work reach print. Medieval northern legends furnished subjects for his plays and romances. Undine brought his writing to a much wider readership.
A tale that changed hands
A knight, sheltered in a fisherman’s cottage, falls in love with the foster daughter of the household. His promises acquire a meaning he only gradually understands. Fouqué adapted his tale for E. T. A. Hoffmann’s opera, first performed in Berlin in 1816. In the English book here, W. L. Courtney adapted the prose and Arthur Rackham supplied the illustrations. Its February 1911 imprint identifies the second impression of their edition.
