Bekenntnisse einer Giftmischerin, von ihr selbst geschrieben, and: Confessions of a Poisoner Written by Herself (review)

If the book title piques enough interest in a potential reader to move on to the cover text, its cleverly placed attention-getters will seduce this reader to open the book and start reading: “In Berlin, 1803, readers rushed to their bookstores and libraries to learn more about Countess Charlotte Ursinus, who had murdered several people with poison and was now in prison. To their surprise, Bekenntnisse einer Giftmischerin, von ihr selbst geschrieben turned out to be not an account by this serial killer but a novel, its author anonymous and its pages filled with promiscuous sex, sharp social criticism, and dark humor.”

This fictional autobiography is divided into three books. All three parts are in the form of a continuous letter written to a mysterious friend Julie Z., whose name appears as the intended recipient of the confessions at the beginning and who is addressed repeatedly throughout the novel in self-reflective passages that often focus on the narrator’s purpose in writing. Julie Z., initially described as the embodiment of traditional feminine virtues, becomes an idealized model of womanhood against which the narrator projects her own deviant personality, way of thinking, and actions.

In the first book, the protagonist recalls her upbringing, education, family relationships, and view on society until she becomes orphaned at age eighteen. By that time she has been seduced by her French tutor, has suffered a violent abortion, and has been molested by her father. She interprets these events as factors that set her up for corruption and crime. The second book focuses on her life as a wife, in which she explains her moral decline from adulteress to murderess as an unavoidable fate created by a combination of circumstances and her strong-tempered character. The third book begins after the protagonist has committed the first murder, that of her husband, and her lover has subsequently committed suicide out of guilt. This part recounts a series of crimes as unavoidable consequences of the first act of murder. The letter ends with an appeal to reform the gender-specific upbringing and education of young women as a safeguard against the kind of life revealed in the poisoner’s confessions.

Throughout, this novel strikes a new tone in its clarity and candor, giving glimpses into the mind of an intelligent woman of the time. It not only reiterates the generally known social limitations that women were subject to but also draws a mind map of the elaborate considerations, calculations of judgment, and precautions behind a woman’s acting or speaking in order to protect her good reputation and project an image of innocence. Furthermore, sections that present practical philosophy through a young woman’s eyes give a refreshing perspective on late eighteenth-century social and family life.

Aside from being “an entertaining read” (vii), this novel in a new, critically edited, and unabridged German version and its parallel version in English translation is not meant for just leisurely consumption but also for academic reading, specifically “for students in German, comparative literature, and women’s studies.” Both the German and the English version come with a thoroughly researched introduction in English. As the editors/translators point out in their “Note on the Text,” these two new parallel editions replace two out-of-print editions. One was published in 1923 with the full-length text of the original. The other one is an abridged version from 1988 that purposely omitted passages of social commentary and sections with glaring anti-Semitic stereotyping.

The editors emphasize in their note on the text that they carefully “restored” the full text and only adapted spelling and grammar to contemporary German standards (xxxviii). In some instances, standardization has not been realized fully. Therefore, occasional deviations from contemporary grammar might confuse the non-native speaker or German student, as for example, “ich habe...