SOURCE: Umbach, Regina. “The Role of Anglophilia in Sophie von La Roche's Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (1771).” German Life and Letters 52, no. 1 (January 1999): 1-12.

In the following essay, Umbach discusses La Roche's Anglophilia as a driving force behind Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim, which like Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, is focused on moral instruction.

Over the course of the eighteenth century, Britain and Germany developed increasingly close links: dynastic connections, trade relations,¹ and a growing book and translation market furthered their contacts in cultural and literary milieux. Until late in the century, however, the two countries stood apart in terms of political progress as well as economic and cultural pre-eminence. Still recovering from the ravages of the Thirty Years' War, Germany lacked a political and cultural centre. The German admiration for Britain and imitation of British customs increasingly challenged the prevailing French cultural hegemony.² Two terms were...