ABSTRACT
The 1879 appearance of Die Familie Mendelssohn by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel's son Sebastian stimulated an increase in publications about Hensel in Germany, France, England, and the United States between 1880 and 1920. Information about the composer appeared in articles, reviews, biographical dictionaries, publications about women composers, collective biographies of famous women, and in a full-length book in French. Die Familie Mendelssohn was published in eighteen editions in Germany before 1933 and, translated into English as Die Familie Mendelssohn in 1881, it was widely read in both England and North America. By 1904, an article in The Dial claimed that the book, now in its eleventh edition, had become a "classic." While Felix Mendelssohn's incredible popularity in England had peaked, it was to linger through the end of the Victorian era and was thus partially responsible for the widespread interest in Sebastian Hensel's book.
