ABSTRACT
In the 1890s and 1900s, the idea that only marriage could legitimize a sexual relationship was being gradually undermined. Clara Viebig's 'Die Schuldige' is based on a true story and makes extensive use of the local dialect of the Eifel, a mountainous region on Germany's border with Belgium and Luxemburg. In the preface to the serialized version of her novel Das tagliche Brot, Viebig also encourages her middle-class readership to pity and understand the proletarian subjects of her novel by graphically depicting the hardships they endure. Gabriele Reuter's novel Das Tranenhaus is a campaigning work that manages at the same time to be a powerful work of art. The novel transforms into art the author's personal experience: in 1897, the unmarried Reuter had given birth to her only child Lily. In Das Tranenhaus, the availability of contraception and abortion prompts a revisiting of old concepts of morality.
