The celebration of the eighty-fifth birthday last October in Oberst- dorff, Bavaria, of Gertrud von le Fort passed off practically without comment in this country. Whilst the name of this Catholic authoress may not be unknown to the English public (the best known of her works, Die Letzte am Schafott, was the source of an opera by Poulenc performed at Covent Garden in 1958, and also of a Georges Bemanos scripted film produced in 1960), it would be true to say that much of her work remains literally a closed book—an unfortunate state of affairs, since her writings are concerned with many of the themes of more internationally celebrated literary figures such as Mauriac or our own Graham Greene.

Of Huguenot descent, Gertrud von le Fort was born in 1876 in Minden, Westphalia, and can trace a rich family history back to the times of the Reformation (three Le Forts fought as officers of Louis XVI in the Tuilleries, whilst the most famous of her ancestors, Francois le Fort had been admiral and companion to Peter the Great). From her father, a Prussian army officer, comes her love of history, plus a knowledge of military life, which stands her in good stead, for example, in her Die Magdeburgische Hochzeit, whilst her interest in religion stems from her mother, a devout Protestant believer. It was these subjects, History and Religion, that she proceeded to study at the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin, coming at the former under the guidance of the learned philosopher, Ernst Troeltsch; to him she is indebted for showing her the place of history as a basis for her work.