Albrecht

by Arlo Bates

Like a vast sea the mighty Schwarzwald stretched its forests of pine and its wide wastes of heather around Castle Rittenberg, its surface forever fretted into waves by the wind. Like the sea it seemed measureless, and the lands which lay beyond its borders appeared to the scattered dwellers in its valleys as remote as might appear the continents to the people of far islands.
Like the sea, moreover, the Schwarzwald was peopled by strange beings, of whom alike the peasant folk who dwelt upon its borders, the rude churls whose huts stood here and there in clusters in its less intractable nooks, and the nobles whose castles overtopped the wilderness of trees and bracken, went always in secret dread. In the north lurked the hordes of the Huns, the terrible barbarians who from time to time descended, hardly human, upon the fertile lands which lay beyond the borders of the forest, swarming as they went upon whatever luckless castle lay in their path. The boldest knight might well tremble at the name of the ferocious Huns, and even the army of Charlemagne himself had hardly been able to cope with this foe.

200 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2008

About the author

Arlo Bates (December 16, 1850 – August 25, 1918) was an American author, educator and newspaperman.

Arlo Bates was born at East Machias, Maine. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1876. In 1880 Bates became the editor of the Boston Sunday Courier (1880–1893) and afterward became professor of English at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1900.

Reviews

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Albrecht by Arlo Bates

3Ms
online pdf: http://www.unz.org/Pub/BatesArlo-1890
through boston-victorian eyes, a germanic romance
knights and grooms and castles and horses
and fairyfolk

Also available:
ebook
Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41764

BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1890.

Copyright, 1890,
By Arlo Bates.

University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.

dedication

THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER,
NIRAN BATES,
AND OF MY MOTHER,
SUSAN THAXTER BATES

Juicy, enticing opening here:



WARNING: totally overwritten; happily quick in the reading! There was an audio option attatched to my online read, however it was the Voice Of Sam* and automated voices sound just that: automated.

Also, you could get by just reading the chapter titles if the flowery prose and/or voice of Sam prove to much to bear: looksee here:

I. How One Went 11
II. How One Came 25
III. How the Knight Sang 33
IV. How He Remained to Woo 44
V. How They Discoursed of Kisses 56
VI. How They Came to Kisses Themselves 66
VII. How the Time Wore to the Wedding Day 75
VIII. Of the Eve before the Wedding 83
IX. Of the Wedding Morning 93
X. How They Were Wed 101
XI. How Albrecht Confessed 113
XII. How the Morgengabe Was Bestowed 125
XIII. How the Days Sped at Rittenberg 134
XIV. How the Priest Became Troubled 144
XV. How Count Stephen Returned 154
XVI. How the Count Talked and Sang 162
XVII. How They Hunted the Stag 172
XVIII. How Herr von Zimmern Came again 181
XIX. How Erna and Albrecht Talked of Life 191
XX. How They Rode to Fly the Falcon 198
XXI. How Albrecht and Herr Frederich Talked in the Wood 211
XXII. How Albrecht Rode Home 225
XXIII. How Erna Suffered 234
XXIV. How Count Stephen Met Herr Frederich 242
XXV. How Father Christopher Sent for Albrecht 252
XXVI. How Albrecht and Erna Forgave Each Other 258

* VOICE OF SAM - in the days or yore, when Atari ruled the waves (HUZZAH), the first automated interactive programme was called SAM. Yes, I am that old!

[LiB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incredibly florid, cod-medieval paranormal romance from the gilded age. Despite tedious moralising and terrible overwriting, I found this oddly compelling and fun to read. I could really see Chris Hemsworth hamming it up as secret wood-god Albrecht, this is pretty much an early version of his superhero roles, although the pious innocent love-interest Erna would need an update to appeal to modern audiences.

It’s odd to think that Bates became a professor of English at MIT and an esteemed fellow of the AAS for writing something ( badly ) that now would be the pulpiest fiction.