SOURCE: Swanson, Christina. “Textual Transgression in the Epistolary Mode: Sophie von La Roche's Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim.” Michigan Germanic Studies 22, no. 2 (fall 1996): 144-61.

In the following essay, Swanson offers a feminist reading of La Roche's Geschichte de Fräuleins von Sternheim, arguing that the novel's epistolary nature is the author's attempt as a female writer to assert authority over her subject.

In Christoph Martin Wieland's editorial introduction to Sophie La Roche's Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (1771), he addresses his comments to “meine Freundin,” the fictional author of the novel,¹ whose manuscript about the virtuous Fräulein Sternheim Wieland has chosen to publish. In essence, Wieland's observations on the work amount to a justification of his decision to publish it; he defends its stylistic shortcomings against the possible criticisms of “Kunstrichter” (13), while simultaneously praising the natural authenticity and sensibility of both the author's writing and Fr...