The Young Cosima

by Henry Handel Richardson

Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden Leaf Printing on round Spine (extra customization on request like complete leather, Golden Screen printing in Front, Color Leather, Colored book etc.) Reprinted in 2019 with the help of original edition published long back [1930]. This book is printed in black & white, sewing binding for longer life, Printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, we processed each page manually and make them readable but in some cases some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume, if you wish to order a specific or all the volumes you may contact us. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. - English, Pages 357. EXTRA 10 DAYS APART FROM THE NORMAL SHIPPING PERIOD WILL BE REQUIRED FOR LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. COMPLETE LEATHER WILL COST YOU EXTRA US$ 25 APART FROM THE LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. {FOLIO EDITION IS ALSO AVAILABLE.}

390 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson Robertson for mixed motives used and adopted Henry Handel Richardson, a pen-name that probably militated against recognition especially when feminist literary history began. Maurice Guest was highly praised in Germany when it first appeared in translation in 1912, but received a bad press in England, though it influenced other novelists. The publishers bowdlerized the language for the second imprint. The trilogy suffered from the long intervals between its three volumes: Australia Felix (1917); The Way Home (1925) and Ultima Thule (1929). The last brought overnight fame and the three volumes were published as one in 1930. Her fame in England was short-lived; as late as 1977, when Virago Press republished The Getting of Wisdom, some London critics referred to the author as 'Mr Richardson'. Her short stories, The End of a Childhood (1934), and the novel, The Young Cosima (1939), had lukewarm receptions.

Henry Handel Richardson's place in Australian literature is important and secure. The Fortunes is an archetypal novel of the country, written about the great upsurge of nineteenth-century Western capitalism fuelled by the gold discoveries. With relentless objectivity it surveys all the main issues which were to define the direction of white Australian society from the 1850s onwards, within the domestic framework of a marriage. Powerfully symbolic in a realistic mode it is, as an English critic said in 1973, 'one of the great inexorable books of the world'.

Reviews

[David Dunlap · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a biographical novel about one of the most famous (notorious?) love triangles in the history of classical music. Cosima (or Collette, as she is sometimes called, for unfathomable reasons) is the daughter of pianist/composer Franz Liszt from one of his extramarital relationships. As the novel opens, she is living in Berlin, with her sister Blondine, in the home of the mother of Hans von Bülow, a pianist who studied with her father and developed a close enough relationship with him that both Cosima and Hans are looking at the possibility of marriage, much to the elder Baronees von Bülow's disapproval. They marry anyway, but Cosima struggles to make herself an integral part of her husband's life. Hans is an intimate friend of composer Richard Wagner, whom Cosima dislikes and resents. At first. Gradually, though...well, if one knows the story, one knows the outcome. -- I liked many things about this book: both Cosima and Hans are realistically drawn: one senses her frustration as she uncovers the bitter fact that her marriage is not turning out as she had thought it would; he is a portrait of absorption -- in self and career. The author does an excellent job at showing the deterioration in the von Bülow marriage. The struggles Cosima and Hans undergo once Cosima's infidelity is revealed are painfully depicted. Wagner, though, is sketchier; one never really quite understands how and why Cosima is drawn to him. (Just his musical genius?) -- Not recommended for everyone, but can be safely endorsed for certain interested readers.

[Chee Chee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this, as I remember loving Richard Mahoney. But I found it very hard work and I didn’t feel much for any of the characters. I persisted through parts 1 and 2, then skim read part 3.