Hélène Allatini, “Il et Elle” (“He and She”), from Mosaïques (1939)^*

* Translated from the French by Anne M. Callahan. Introduced by Pamela L. Caughie.

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors .

Notes on contributors

Anne M. Callahan is Professor Emeritus of French at Loyola University Chicago. Professor Callahan is the author of Writing the Voice of Pleasure: Heterosexuality without Women (2001) and Erotic Love in Literature: from Medieval Legend to Romantic Illusion (1982).

Pamela L. Caughie is Professor of English and Women’s Studies and Gender Studies at Loyola University Chicago. She is author of Virginia Woolf and Postmodernism (1991) and Passing and Pedagogy: The Dynamics of Responsibility (1999); editor of Disciplining Modernism (2009) and Virginia Woolf in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (2000); and co-editor of Woolf Online (launched 2013), among other works.

Notes

* Translated from the French by Anne M. Callahan. Introduced by Pamela L. Caughie.

1. Portions of this introduction are from the introduction to Man into Woman: A Comparative Scholarly Edition, by Pamela L. Caughie and Sabine Meyer (forthcoming).

2. Robert de Mackiels, “Éric et Hélène Allatini,” in Anthologie des Écrivains Morts á la Guerre 1939–1945 (Paris: Albin Michel, 1960): 7–10.

3. Marie-Anne von Friedländer-Fuld (1892–1973) married Rudolf von Goldschmidt-Rothschild, her third husband, in 1923. During WWI she corresponded with Rainer Maria Rilke, publishing the correspondence pseudonymously in 1956. She traveled with Kurt Warnekros (mentioned below) and was rumored to be his lover.

4. Anna Larssen (1875–1955), a Danish actress at the Royal Theater (Det Kongelige Teater) in Copenhagen.

5. Gottlieb, misspelled here.

6. Karen Bramson (1875–1936) was a Danish author who published novels and plays in Danish and French. She lived in Paris from the time of the first world war.

7. Professor Kurt Warnekros (1882–1949) performed all but the first of four surgeries on Lili Elvenes. He was director of the Women’s Clinic in Dresden (Staatliche Frauenklinik) from 1925 to 1948.

8. Man into Woman opens with the couples’ reunion in a Paris café.

9. Dr. Erwin Gohrbandt (1890–1965), a Berlin surgeon who performed the first operation in 1930. He was one of the doctors to whom patients at Hirschfeld’s Institute were referred.

10. Elisabeth Schumann (1888–1952) was a German opera singer.

11. The inscription on the headstone in Trinitatis Cemetery (Trinitatisfriedhof) reads: “Lili Elbe/Geboren in Danemark/Gestorben in Dresden” (Born in Denmark/Died in Dresden).