So I've been going back and forth between older fiction and memoirs, but this time I cheated a bit. This particular "memoir" is a piece of fiction that was supposedly so real that it was taken as fact and published in 1915 in a prominent English magazine, The Fortnightly Review. At the time, it was published anonymously as the account of an English governess who escaped from Germany after WWI started.
The anonymous writer goes through her time with two princes and a princess in a very realistic way. It's not all espionage and spying. It's a woman on her own in a foreign country trying to figure out if something more is going on around her. She was born in America but grew up in England. She considers herself English, but lets everyone around her believe she's American. They won't listen if she tries to correct them anyway. After a while, strange things begin to happen that make her suspicious, and she starts to pay more attention.
It's easy to understand why people would believe this was a true account. It has the vague details that you'd expect from an ordinary person. While most of the book is more benign events that probably aren't anything to worry about, I wasn't bored. I imagined a young woman going back over her diary evaluating every little encounter wondering what was important. I'm curious what the reception was at the time it was published. At that time, the war was already underway, and it could've created quite a stir depending on who read it.
Either way, I enjoyed this one. At the end, the author mentions that she doesn't think the reader would be interested to discover how she escaped and vows to sum it up quickly. I was incredibly interested and glad it was included. Overall, an entertaining read. Good Book!
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| Content page from Fortnightly Review January to June 1915 |
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