MLR, 103.2,2oo8 589 VerborgeneFacetten: Studien zu Fontane. By RENATE B6SCHENSTEIN. Ed. by HANNA DELF VON WOLZOGEN and HUBERTUS FISCHER. (Fontaneana, 3) Wiirzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann. 2006. xiv+569 pp. ?49.8o. ISBN 978-3-8260 3237-0. Renate Boschenstein (1933-2006) was renowned for her scholarship on the idyll, on myths, and on psychological currents in literature. The application of her vast theoretical and historical knowledge to subject-matter from the nineteenth century forms the focus of this collection. The articles assembled here mainly date from the two decades before her death; thevolume comprises allmajor published papers and one unpublished paper on Fontane, several on theUndine-Melusine complex and on related and intersecting topics, several important reviews, and sixty-five pages from a small Studienbuch on Fontane forReclam's Universal-Bibliothek that shewas working on when she died. Significantly, the completed chapters deal with some of Fontane's lesser-known works, the early novella Geschwisterliebe, the lost fragment Allerlei Gluick, and with Cecile and Graf Petofy. To have these chapters available is trulyvaluable. Formulating her argument sensitively and elegantly, the author suc ceeds in shedding new lighton these textswhile still achieving the accessibility and covering the essential information required from such an introduction. Most of the othermaterial can, of course, be accessed from itsoriginal places of publication. But only in combination do these studies afford a glimpse of the scholar's personality and preoccupations. In all theirerudition and, sometimes, long-windedness, theypossess a discernible voice, a voice of passion and tangible concern for thehuman core of all literature, for the significance behind all surfacemeaning, and for continuities and correspondences within the literary field throughout the ages. The scholarly articles are preceded by two short autobiographical sketches that describe formative experiences of theauthor. These pieces are truly impressive inone respect as historical documents, but they are also implicit pleas for scholarly objec tivityand responsibility. The scholar, these sketches assert, is a product of her times and these times bestow moral obligations without which any academic achievement pales into insignificance. The influential scholarly body ofwork, the excerpts from theunfinished Studienbuch, and the legacy contained in theautobiographical sketches combine to form aworthy tribute toRenate Boschenstein as an engaged and engaging scholar. NATIONALUNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, MAYNOOTH FLORIANKROBB Heinrich Mann: Eine Biographie. By MANFRED FLUGGE. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. 2006. 5" I PP. E24.90. ISBN 978-3-498-02089-7. Manfred Fliigge's sympathetic but by nomeans uncritical biography presents in some important respects an unfamiliar picture ofHeinrich Mann. The rationalist Zivili sationsliterat ishere outmuscled by a very different image ofMann as 'der allerletzte Romantiker, ein indas 20. Jahrhundert verirrterTaugenichts' (p. I2). Fliigge under pins this shift in perception with persuasive analyses of individual works inwhich he also challenges some common critical positions. What emerges with particular clarity; however, is the abundance of contradictions and paradoxes which attach to every stage ofMann's lifeand ceuvre.His undisputed literaryachievements, among which Fliigge includes various early novellas and essays aswell as novels such asDer Untertan ( 914), Ein ernstesLeben (I932), and especially DieyJugenddes Konigs Henri Quatre (935) and Die Vollendungdes Konigs Henri Quatre (I938), stand in starkcon trast with otherworks of often startling ineptitude, such as his lamentable attempt in ...