Annette von Droste-Hülshoff

First published in 1965, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff is the first book about the great German poetess of the early nineteenth century in English. Delicate, fey, over-sensitive, unstable, with the intellect often described as unbecomingly masculine, it is easy to see how Annette von Droste-Hülshoff was bound to flout the conventions of the conservative society she lived in and to suffer accordingly. But melancholy and despairing as many of her poems are, we are never allowed to imagine her a...