Hindsight: An Autobiography

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Gender Studies, Lesbian, Biography & Memoir, Historical
Cover of the book Hindsight: An Autobiography by Charlotte Wolff, Plunkett Lake Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Charlotte Wolff ISBN: 1230000203977
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press Publication: December 19, 2013
Imprint: Language: English
Author: Charlotte Wolff
ISBN: 1230000203977
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
Publication: December 19, 2013
Imprint:
Language: English

Hindsight: An Autobiography by Charlotte Wolff (134,000 words; 13 illustrations)

Hindsight is the memoir of an outsider: a stateless person; a Jew; and, as Wolff called herself, a “conscious” lesbian. Love for women had been her inclination since she could remember and she writes that no one in her family questioned it. In Hindsight, she describes her girlfriends from Danzig of 1910 with the same candor as adult lovers she meets in Germany, France and England. She gives a vivid account of the years she spent as a physician and party girl in Weimar Berlin, her friendship with Walter and Dora Benjamin, and her interest in chirology (the study of hands) and sexology.

Wolff writes movingly about Jewish identity and history, medicine, psychotherapy, and her life as a 20th century lesbian. She is particularly insightful about how statelessness affects the psyche. She probes her attraction to glamorous friends such as the fashion journalist Helen Hessel (Kathe of Jules and Jim) and Baladine Klossowska (mother of the painter Balthus) in Paris. She describes the wartime refugee colony of Sanary, France and the Quakers, Surrealists, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, and Maria and Aldous Huxley whom she met there. When she moves to London in 1936, her medical degree is not recognized and she reads hands for a living, including the hands of Virginia Woolf, Sybille Bedford, and the Duchess of Windsor, before becoming a researcher at University College London.

Though reluctant to become what she called a “professional lesbian,” Wolff began to join same-sex political groups in the 1960s, after researching her book Love Between Women, published in 1971. Germans invited her to Germany and she ends her book with a detailed account of her triumphant return to Berlin at the age of 80. By turns discursive, narrative and confessional, this is a unique woman’s contribution to the social history of Jews, medicine, and psychotherapy.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Hindsight: An Autobiography by Charlotte Wolff (134,000 words; 13 illustrations)

Hindsight is the memoir of an outsider: a stateless person; a Jew; and, as Wolff called herself, a “conscious” lesbian. Love for women had been her inclination since she could remember and she writes that no one in her family questioned it. In Hindsight, she describes her girlfriends from Danzig of 1910 with the same candor as adult lovers she meets in Germany, France and England. She gives a vivid account of the years she spent as a physician and party girl in Weimar Berlin, her friendship with Walter and Dora Benjamin, and her interest in chirology (the study of hands) and sexology.

Wolff writes movingly about Jewish identity and history, medicine, psychotherapy, and her life as a 20th century lesbian. She is particularly insightful about how statelessness affects the psyche. She probes her attraction to glamorous friends such as the fashion journalist Helen Hessel (Kathe of Jules and Jim) and Baladine Klossowska (mother of the painter Balthus) in Paris. She describes the wartime refugee colony of Sanary, France and the Quakers, Surrealists, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, and Maria and Aldous Huxley whom she met there. When she moves to London in 1936, her medical degree is not recognized and she reads hands for a living, including the hands of Virginia Woolf, Sybille Bedford, and the Duchess of Windsor, before becoming a researcher at University College London.

Though reluctant to become what she called a “professional lesbian,” Wolff began to join same-sex political groups in the 1960s, after researching her book Love Between Women, published in 1971. Germans invited her to Germany and she ends her book with a detailed account of her triumphant return to Berlin at the age of 80. By turns discursive, narrative and confessional, this is a unique woman’s contribution to the social history of Jews, medicine, and psychotherapy.

More books from Plunkett Lake Press

Cover of the book The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book An American Genius: The Life of Ernest Orlando Lawrence, Father of the Cyclotron by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book Sakharov: A Biography by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book Dreifach heimatlos: Die Suche einer Tochter nach der verlorenen Welt ihrer Mutter by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book From That Place and Time: A Memoir, 1938-1947 by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book Acting in Terezín by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book Adepts in Self-Portraiture: Casanova, Stendhal, Tolstoy by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book Under A Cruel Star: A Life In Prague 1941-1968 by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book Outwitting the Gestapo by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book Dostoevsky by Zweig by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book The Death of an American Jewish Community: A Tragedy of Good Intentions by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book Atomic Quest: A Personal Narrative by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book Mary Stuart by Charlotte Wolff
Cover of the book Tina Packer Builds A Theater by Charlotte Wolff
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy