A Scandal in Koenigsberg
Published on 4. September 2025
Book
Hardback
192 pages
978-0-241-76788-7 (ISBN)
Description
A remarkable micro-history from the author of The Sleepwalkers and Revolutionary Spring
'It takes a confident historian to write a short book... the story is distilled to its powerful essence; he knows precisely what's important... This small book is many things, but for me what shines brightest is a tale of two renegade preachers who understood women and love' - Gerard de Groot, The Times
Now part of the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, the former Prussian and German port of Koenigsberg has always been a somewhat sleepy place, doomed to be famous for having once been the residence of Immanuel Kant. But in the late 1830s, just for a short while, it became famous for all the wrong reasons.
Christopher Clark's brilliant new book is the result of many years of fascination with this strange case. Sensational accusations were bandied about, implying that beneath the town's somnolent surface there were dark erotic currents and wrenching betrayals of trust. For the Prussian authorities this was just the sort of moral collapse they feared most. In the aftermath of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, which had unsettled a generation, every lapse could be seen as the harbinger of new storms.
A Scandal in Koenigsberg beautifully brings to life a time and a place that we would now situate in the tranquil 'Biedermeier' years between the seismic upheavals of the 1810s and 1840s. But there is a timeless quality to this small vortex of turbulence, in which spiritual hunger, vanity, professional rivalry, sexual incontinence, naivety and sheer human waywardness threatened to tear a city apart.
'It takes a confident historian to write a short book... the story is distilled to its powerful essence; he knows precisely what's important... This small book is many things, but for me what shines brightest is a tale of two renegade preachers who understood women and love' - Gerard de Groot, The Times
Now part of the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, the former Prussian and German port of Koenigsberg has always been a somewhat sleepy place, doomed to be famous for having once been the residence of Immanuel Kant. But in the late 1830s, just for a short while, it became famous for all the wrong reasons.
Christopher Clark's brilliant new book is the result of many years of fascination with this strange case. Sensational accusations were bandied about, implying that beneath the town's somnolent surface there were dark erotic currents and wrenching betrayals of trust. For the Prussian authorities this was just the sort of moral collapse they feared most. In the aftermath of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, which had unsettled a generation, every lapse could be seen as the harbinger of new storms.
A Scandal in Koenigsberg beautifully brings to life a time and a place that we would now situate in the tranquil 'Biedermeier' years between the seismic upheavals of the 1810s and 1840s. But there is a timeless quality to this small vortex of turbulence, in which spiritual hunger, vanity, professional rivalry, sexual incontinence, naivety and sheer human waywardness threatened to tear a city apart.
Reviews / Votes
It takes a confident historian to write a short book... the story is distilled to its powerful essence; he knows precisely what's important... This small book is many things, but for me what shines brightest is a tale of two renegade preachers who understood women and love -- Gerard de Groot * The Times * An exquisite work of micro-history that deserves its place on the shelf beside such classics as Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms (1976) and Natalie Zemon Davis's The Return of Martin Guerre -- Matt D'Ancona * The New World * Clark writes with his characteristic clarity and wit. This carefully researched microhistory clearly echoes our own time -- Anna von der Goltz * Financial Times * A Scandal in Konigsberg may be a miniature, but it is far from insubstantial... fans of tales of clerical skulduggery, of German history in general and culture wars avant la Bismarckian lettre in particular, plus anyone interested in how intolerance ruins lives, will enjoy Clark's latest, not least because it is 'short and lively" just like Frederick the Great's ideal wars -- Jonathan Boff * The Spectator * A splendid exercise in historical recuperation. It illustrates the confusions, uncertainties and prejudices of a period when the horrors of revolution and warfare were still vivid in the European memory, and men and women were desperately searching for ordinary, lower-case enlightenment and spiritual guidance -- John Banville * Literary Review * The rise of 'fake news' and 'alternative facts' in our own time... lend the story revealed by the files in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv an unexpected contemporary relevance ... Clark tells this engrossing story with all his usual narrative verve and stylistic brilliance -- Richard J. Evans * Times Literary Supplement * Konigsburg (is) a kind of Prussian Atlantis, a quasi-mythical place everyone gets to build in their own imagination without reality getting in the way... What makes Clark's telling so effective is the way he brings this seemingly obscure episode to life without ever overplaying its strangeness -- Katja Hoyer * Zeitgeist * Clark uses a scandal that befell Koenigsberg in the 1830s to tell a story of Europe and religion and the battle between reason and imagination. Everything here is extraordinary... Clark has tremendous fun in this setting, and not just because of its soap opera-ish potential -- Peter Hoskin * Englesberg Ideas * Clark's narrative impressively interweaves the stories of the men and women drawn into Ebel's circle with the political, religious and intellectual upheavals of the time -- Ian Cooper * The Tablet * Rich, subtle and provocative -- Matthew Lyons * The Telegraph *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 224 mm
Width: 143 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
296 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-76788-7 (9780241767887)
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Other editions
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Person
Christopher Clark is the Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge. He was knighted in 2015. His previous books are The Politics of Conversion, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Iron Kingdom, The Sleepwalkers, Time and Power, Prisoners of Time and Revolutionary Spring.