Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Last Summer
    Unavailable
    The Last Summer
    Unavailable
    The Last Summer
    Ebook114 pages1 hour

    The Last Summer

    By Ricarda Huch

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A psychological thriller by the pioneering German writer Ricarda Huch. A novel of letters from the last century – but one with an astonishingly modern feel. Now for the first time in English..

    Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. To counter student unrest, the governor of St Petersburg closes the state university. Soon afterwards he arrives at his summer residence with his family and receives a death threat. His worried wife employs a young bodyguard, Lju, to protect her husband. Little does she know that Lju sides with the students – and the students are plotting an assassination.

    Why Peirene chose to publish this book:

    'I came upon this novel in the original German a year ago. And I loved it. It’s a proper epistolary novel. Even though written more than 100 years ago, it feels as relevant now as then. The Last Summer asks how people can be trapped by an ideology? A topical story. An enjoyable read. A gem.'Meike Ziervogel, publisher

    ‘I was gripped by this remarkable short novel, a cavalcade of individual voices emerge with great freshness from the shadow of revolution. It is both a work of its time, and a timeless work.’ Imogen Robertson

    'She is the First Lady of Germany. No, she is probably the First Lady of Europe.’ Thomas Mann

    ‘The very model of the stylish female troublemaker... a social revolutionary in the deepest sense.’ Clive James
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPeirene Press
    Release dateFeb 24, 2016
    ISBN9781908670359
    Unavailable
    The Last Summer
    Author

    Ricarda Huch

    Ricarda Huch (1864 –1947) was a ground-breaking German historian, novelist and philosopher. As one of the first women to study at the University in Zurich, she received her doctorate in Philosophy and History in 1892. She authored numerous works on European history. She also wrote novels, poems, and a play. Der Letzte Sommer (The Last Summer) was first published in 1910. In 1926 she was the first female writer to be admitted to the Prussian Academy of Arts. She won from Thomas Mann the title: 'The First Lady of Germany' – and even had an asteroid named in her honour.

    Related to The Last Summer

    Related ebooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Lauren Oyler And Patricia Lockwood On Their ‘Evil Twin’ Internet Novels

      Feb 8, 2021

      I hate it here. Everyone agrees that “here” sucks. We are miserable and unproductive and lonely all at once. Time goes fast but not in the way that it flies when you’re having fun, more like when you wake up after a nap to find that it’s suddenly dar

      7 min read

    • Article

      Oceans

      Mar 15, 2019

      I used to be interested in mountains. They moved at a speed I could deal with. They waited for me to catch up. It was like that all my life. Then we moved to California, and after eight years of earthquakes I began to doubt my ability to put things i

      12 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Sarah Thankam Mathews

      Dec 18, 2020

      By May I was clenching my teeth so hard when I slept that it eventually cracked a filling. The post A Year in Reading: Sarah Thankam Mathews appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Jessamine Chan

      Dec 5, 2022

      Jessamine Chan reflects on 2022 through the books she read. The post A Year in Reading: Jessamine Chan appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Mournful Spring

      Mar 1, 2022

      in memory of Adam Zagajewski So many friends have you seen pass,maestro of the poetic eulogy. Now it’s my turn. Can you hear me?We don’t know. Why didn’t we spend more time together,talk more, call each other? I thought you’d live to be old,very ol

      1 min read

    • Article

      Saul Bellow and the Human Look

      Mar 1, 2022

      Saul Bellow and the Human Look
      10 min read

    • Article

      Lust, Loss, and Liberation in Jenny Erpenbeck’s ‘Kairos’

      Jun 1, 2023

      Maybe this novel is a Bildungsroman about freedom, with young Katharina its hero and the West her inevitable liberation? The post Lust, Loss, and Liberation in Jenny Erpenbeck’s ‘Kairos’ appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Jesse Paddock

      Dec 9, 2020

      I’d gotten what I’d wanted—a room full of books and time enough to read them—but at a cost. The post A Year in Reading: Jesse Paddock appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Re-Covered: The Mischief

      Dec 2, 2019

      Re-Covered: The Mischief
      8 min read

    • Article

      Lee Chang-dong

      Jan 10, 2019

      Lee Chang-dong
      3 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Oct 16, 2023

      What a thing of joy is a new Francis Spufford novel. Golden Hill, his debut, was a transporting piece of historical fiction that captured life in early New York in all its quirk and contingence, and deservedly won a bag of awards. His second, Light P

      3 min read

    • Article

      How High We Go In The Dark

      Dec 29, 2021

      ▸ RELEASED 18 JANUARY 304 pages | Hardback/ebook ▸ Author Sequoia Nagamatsu ▸ Publisher Bloomsbury There are surprisingly few SF stories about death. Sure, many books and films kill off characters. But only a handful – like Tarkovsky’s Solaris, or Te

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Fiction No. 243

      Dec 15, 2018

      The Art of Fiction No. 243
      24 min read

    • Article

      For Snow Queens Who Have Considered Suicide Because Paul Newman in the First Twenty Minutes of Paris Blues Is Too Much

      Jun 14, 2022

      But I start with the great Sidney Poitier because his stardom was an established part of the Freedom movement in 1964, and he was to be the chaperone of my inner awakening that dramatic year. Indianapolis, my hometown, had some brave marches and two

      10 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Adam Dalva

      Dec 14, 2020

      Anyone who teaches creative writing knows that our students bring us to the most implausible worlds—in one class, you might experience a sword fight on Mars, a break-up in a college dorm, and an admission that changes an identity forever. In an impos

      7 min read

    • Article

      Jan Morris

      Jun 15, 2018

      I have always rather envied the poet Ovid, who was banished from Rome by the emperor Augustus, you may remember, to a remote place called Tomis on the shores of the Black Sea. There he died, ten years later, and his exile has gone into legend and int

      17 min read

    Reviews for The Last Summer

    4/5

    1 rating1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This was published in 1910, but my copy was a recent translation into English. And the cover blurb is right, it does have relevance to the world we live in.This is set in Russia, which is experienecing upheaval. There has been some incident in the university (we are not sure exactly what) that has caused the university to be suspended and the chancellor has recieved threats on account of this action. He has retreated, with his wife and 3 children, to his country house and the book is set there. The letters on this come from the 5 of the family plus the young man hired as a bodyguard come secretary to protect the chancellor. An epistolary novel, we don't get to read all of the correspondance that is happening, so you're never quite sure of eveything that is going on. All of the letters in this come from 6 people and are (mostly) outwards going, which adds to an air of opression, you see very little of the world outside. There's a lot that is left unsaid. We're never sure of exactly what happened, only that it has divided the population, and divides, to some extent, the family as well. There is a marked difference between those who hold a view and those who hold it strngly enough to actually act upon it, and that is made clear in the letters, but, of course, those are not seen by the people in the house. It ends very abruptly, and the aftermath of the actions taken are not explored. What happens next it left entirely to your imagination and speculation. This was a most intriguing read and the blurb is right, this is a book that continues to have relevance even after the passge of time.