256 Reviews Asthetische Briefe, for example, Schiller speaks of the aesthetic as a precondition for truly moral behaviour in humankind: 'Freiheit', he argues in Letter xvn. 4, 'liegt nur in der Zusammenwirkung seiner beiden Naturen' (and see Letter xxm. 5). Although Mann did write in 'Nietzsches Philosophie im Lichte unserer Erfahrung' (1947) that 'der wahre Gegensatz ist der von Ethik und Asthetik', this remark has to be seen in the context of his attempt to counter Nietzsche's opposition of life and morality; in his earlier sketches for the unfinished project 'Geist und Kunst' (1909-10), Mann understood well the relationship between the moral and the aesthetic (and presented it in highly Schillerian terms): 'Schon schreiben heifitbeinahe schon schon denken, und davon ist nicht weit zum schonen Handeln. Alle Sittigung, sittliche Veredelung und Steigerung entstammt dem Geiste der Literatur.' Or to put it another (and more ironic) way, as Mann did in 1944: 'SchlieBlich ist die Heuchelei ein Kompliment an die Tugend; sie bedeutet die prinzipielle Anerkennung des moralischen Standards.' University of Glasgow Paul Bishop Metropolitan Chronicles: Georg Hermann's Berlin Novels, 1897-1912. By Godela Weiss-Sussex. (Stuttgarter Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 307) Stuttgart: Heinz. 2001. 370 pp. ?27. ISBN 3-88099-384-x (hbk). Georg Hermann, labelled the Jewish Fontane, enjoyed great popularity in the early decades of the twentieth century. The name of his most famous character, Jettchen Gebert from the novel of the same title (1906), became a household name fordecades. Now that Berlin is again the capital ofa united Germany, and now that long-forgotten Jewish authors are receiving overdue recognition, interest in Hermann's ceuvre is also enjoying a certain resurgence. A new edition of his complete works is being published, and conferences on his life and work are being organized. The present publication is thus a very timely one which could potentially become an important contribution to Hermann scholarship. The focus, however, is on Hermann's Berlin, not his Jewishness . The depiction of Berlin provides Godela Weiss-Sussex with the material forher analysis of Hermann's aesthetic positions and practices. The study is meticulously argued and draws on some previously unpublished archival material. It concentrates on those of Hermann's Berlin novels that were published before the First World War: in addition to Jettchen Gebert and its sequel, Henriette Jacobi (1908), the early Spielkinder (1897) and the later Kubinke (1910) and Die Nacht des Doktor Herzfeld (1912). The study manages to correct the prevalent, Jettchen-based image of Her? mann as a rather sentimental and nostalgic portraitist of Biedermeier Berlin. It does so by firmly situating the chosen body of the writer's work in the context of con? temporary literary currents from Realism and Naturalism to Impressionism (without 'over-modernizing' him), by relating Hermann's descriptive methods to modes of vi? sual representation ofthe metropolis, and by identifying the autobiographical content as well as the social commentary of the writer much more clearly than has previously been the case. The comparative examination of Berlin paintings fromthe Biedermeier to the turn of the century offers particularly interesting insights into concepts and representations of the changing cityscape and their functions within the discourse of the time. Unfortunately the quality of the well-chosen illustrations leaves some? thing to be desired. All the same, in Weiss-Sussex's study there emerges a newer and sharper focus on Hermann's development as a writer and his ability to create atmospheres and generate meaning (social, cultural, and historical) through a unique combination of spatial and visual elements in his writing. This general impression of an important and weighty contribution to Hermann scholarship has to be modified in one respect. The presentation would have benefited MLRy 99.1, 2004 257 from some considerable tightening up: too much space is devoted to announcements of what is to follow, and too many unproductive detours into what little secondary literature there is on Hermann distract from the central findings of the study. In short: if the dissertation had been turned into a book (and a much shorter one at that), its impact on future debates could have been increased considerably. But even as it is, Godela Weiss-Sussex's study succeeds in...