“The main purpose of the book is critical, and ... we are prepared to admit that Mr. Sturt is, on the whole a ‘very respectable person’ in that field. Constructively the book is weak, and the weakness is a serious blemish.”
+ – Spec. 97: 266. Ag. 25, ’06. 1730w.
Sudermann, Hermann. [Undying past]; tr. by Beatrice Marshall. †$1.50. Lane.
“The scene of the story is East Prussia ... and the setting is agricultural. Two landed proprietors have grown up from childhood with the love of David and Jonathan.... Leo, having been detected in an intrigue with the wife of a nobleman of the neighborhood, is challenged by the injured husband to a duel, slays his opponent, is sentenced to a term of imprisonment, and, after his release, goes to South America, for a period of years. Ulrich, in the meanwhile, knowing nothing of his friend’s guilty relations with the widow of the slain, offers himself to her in marriage and is accepted. They have been united for some time, when Leo returns to his home, and at this point the story opens.... Leo is all the time conscious of the dark shadow of guilt that separates him from Ulrich. The latter, wholly unsuspecting, seeks to reknit the old relations, yet must defer to the stubborn fact that his wife had been made a widow by the deed of his friend.... Her old passion for her husband’s friend is revived upon his return, and ... the substance of the book is the struggle between these two characters-her struggle to bring him back into the old sinful relation, his to banish her from his thought, and purify his soul by repentance and expiation.”—Dial.
“It cannot be said altogether that Miss Marshall has attained a very high standard. But at least it may be said that she has given us a readable and fairly literary rendering of the original.”
+ + – Acad. 70: 576. Je. 16, ’06. 520w.
“This is a gloomy but powerful psychologic study which also gives a fine realistic picture of life on the great landed estates of Prussia.” Amy C. Rich.
+ Arena. 36: 571. N. ’06. 290w.
“If from the artistic point of view it is hardly equal to some of the author’s other novels that appeared before it, it is none the less a fine and forcible romance, and contains some of his best writing.”