In her personal journals, Hedwig Pringsheim, daughter of the feminist Hedwig Dohm, wife of the mathematician Alfred Pringsheim, mother of Katia and mother-in-law of Thomas Mann, recorded and commented on her experiences over the course of 56 years. The diaries were written between the years of 1884 and 1941, covering the period from the empire to National Socialism and exile in Switzerland. The upper-class life of the emancipated Jewish Pringsheim family – and soon also the Mann family – took place against the background of massive social and political changes. The journals give accounts of the family’s daily life, reading matter, travels, visits to exhibitions, concerts and the theatre, and meetings with members of high society in Berlin and Munich, throwing an authentic and sometimes surprising new light on Thomas Mann and his family.
The first two volumes of the eight-volume edition are now available. They focus on the time the family was becoming established in the Palais Pringsheim in Arcisstraße (vol. 1: 1885 -1891) and the society scandal surrounding the novel »Sibilla Dalmar« written by Hedwig Pringsheim’s mother (vol. 2: 1892 – 1897). The individual volumes contain an introduction providing background information on the era and several indexes, including a detailed index of names.
An upper-class life concerned with the society of fin-de-siècle Munich.
Hedwig Pringsheim
(1855 –1942), daughter of the famous feminist Hedwig Dohm, wife of the mathematics professor and art patron Alfred Pringsheim and mother of Katia Mann (1883 –1980), who married Thomas Mann in 1905.
The Editor
Cristina Herbst, born in 1946, has completed in-depth research into Thomas Mann and his environment, first as an editor with Vittorio Klostermann Publishing, then at S. Fischer. She played a substantial role in the planning and realisation of the complete commented Frankfurt edition of the works of Thomas Mann. She has been working exclusively on the edition of Hedwig Pringsheim’s journals since 1999.
