Love at Last Sight

In this fascinating study, Tyler Carrington sets out to understand the culture of love and intimacy in turn-of-the-century Berlin. His sources include a rich array of novels and short stories, newspaper articles and personal ads, sociological and psychological studies and police records. Carrington frames his narrative around the 17 June 1914, murder of Frieda Kliem, a thirty-nine-year-old unmarried seamstress who unwittingly met her killer by responding to a personal ad. As a single, heterosexual woman, Kliem had embraced the promise and perils of love in the modern urban landscape. More importantly for Carrington, she represented the contradictions and ambiguities inherent in modern urban love and courtship. Kliem enjoyed bicycle riding, socializing with her friends and casual dating. But she also sought the security of a respectable, middle-class partner. This, Carrington tells us, is the puzzle Kliem presents: the rejection of convention and embrace of risk on the one hand, and the irresistible pull of middle-class marriage on the other.

Aesthetics · Art · Casual · Convention · Courtship · Literature · Media studies · Middle class · Narrative · Newspaper · Political science · Social science · Sociology · European history and politics · German History and Society · History · Law