Little Germany: Exile and Asylum in Victorian England
By (Author) Rosemary Ashton
Faber & Faber
Faber & Faber
16th May 2013
Main
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Refugees and political asylum
941.00431
320
Width 135mm, Height 216mm, Spine 23mm
396g
Following the failure of the 1848 revolution a great many political refugees headed for England - the richly cosmopolitan hub of an Empire, and the commercial-industrial locus of the world. Among the German contingent of exiles were, famously, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. But many less luminous names, no less well-educated in their native Germany, also settled in England and made their way there, whether as teachers or tailors, journalists or musicians, polemicists or political organizers. Few of these exiles knew how long they would have to call England home: some became keen Anglophiles, while others remained resolutely wedded in spirit to 'the old country.' Rosemary Ashton's study, first published in 1986, charts the fortunes of this disparate group and illuminates Victorian England through their eyes, so making a fascinating account of a neglected area of Anglo-German relations.