The introduction presents the key theoretical concepts of cultural exchange and Mercio P. Gomes’s theory of ethnoexocentrism; the historical parameters of 1833–1910; the ten writers on which this study focuses, who arrived in Germany in three successive waves; the varied reasons women travelled to Germany; the relation of this book to studies of cosmopolitanism; and Anna Jameson’s and Vernon Lee’s own theories of cosmopolitanism that demonstrate their understanding of what it meant and its importance. The introduction then briefly outlines chapters to come.