Winnie and Wolf: A Novel
May 2015 · Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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368
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About this eBook
Winnie and Wolf is the story of the remarkable relationship between Winifred Wagner and Adolf Hitler that took place during the years between the two world wars, as seen through the eyes of the secretary at the Wagner House in Bayreuth.
Winifred, an English girl, was brought up in an orphanage and married at the age of eighteen to the son of Germany's most controversial genius. She is a passionate Germanophile, a Wagnerian dreamer, and a Teutonic patriot. In the debacle of the post-Versailles world, the Wagner family hopes for the coming of a Parsifal, a mystic idealist and redeemer. In 1923, they meet their Parsifal-a wild-eyed Viennese opera fanatic named Adolf Hitler. He has already made a name for himself in some sections of German society through rabble-rousing and street-corner speeches. It is Winifred, though, who truly believes in him. Both have known the humiliation of poverty and a deep anger at the society that excluded them. They find in each other an unusual kinship that begins with a passion for opera.
In A. N. Wilson's boldest and most ambitious novel yet, the world of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany is brilliantly recreated, and forms the backdrop to this incredible bond, which ultimately reveals the remarkable capacity of human beings to deceive themselves.
Winifred, an English girl, was brought up in an orphanage and married at the age of eighteen to the son of Germany's most controversial genius. She is a passionate Germanophile, a Wagnerian dreamer, and a Teutonic patriot. In the debacle of the post-Versailles world, the Wagner family hopes for the coming of a Parsifal, a mystic idealist and redeemer. In 1923, they meet their Parsifal-a wild-eyed Viennese opera fanatic named Adolf Hitler. He has already made a name for himself in some sections of German society through rabble-rousing and street-corner speeches. It is Winifred, though, who truly believes in him. Both have known the humiliation of poverty and a deep anger at the society that excluded them. They find in each other an unusual kinship that begins with a passion for opera.
In A. N. Wilson's boldest and most ambitious novel yet, the world of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany is brilliantly recreated, and forms the backdrop to this incredible bond, which ultimately reveals the remarkable capacity of human beings to deceive themselves.
About the author
A. N. WILSON is an English writer and journalist who has written numerous critical biographies, novels, essays, and popular histories. He is an occasional columnist for the Daily Mail, The Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, The Spectator, and The Observer. His books The Victorians, Dante in Love, and After the Victorians, have garnered considerable critical and popular praise. He lives in London.
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