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A Place in the Country

This collection of essays – part biographical meditation, part critical interpretation – on five writers and an artist whose works are of lasting importance to him, first appeared in German as a collection in 1998, when W.G. Sebald was already becoming well-known as a writer following the publication of his first three major works of prose fiction. As such it presents significant insights into his writing and preoccupations hitherto unavailable to the Anglophone reader who is, on the whole, unfamiliar with the works of writers such as Gottfried Keller or Eduard Mörike. The volume therefore includes, at my suggestion, an Introduction and Notes to explain references which might be evident to a German reader (the original is devoid of notes other than a solitary asterisk) but less so to that of the translation. These notes have been supplemented by a Bibliography listing Sebald’s sources, resulting from archival research in DLA Marbach where much of his library is held, as well as editions used (and in some cases annotated in his hand) in the UEA library. The volume further involved research (EÜK Straelen) into English translations (also listed in the Bibliography) of the works cited, to preserve the polyphonic quality of the text in which Sebald’s own critical-authorial voice alternates with those of the authors he evokes.