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Frederick Philip Grove’s
Obsession With
Else von Freytag-Loringhoven
The Evidence
in his
First Canadian Novels
by Gaby Divay
for the
German-Canadian Chair, UW
Winnipeg, Dec 4, 2003
WHO was he?
Frederick Philip Grove was really born Felix Paul
Greve in 1879
In Dec 1902, he & Else, wife of his friend August
Endell, become lovers; they elope to Palermo in Jan
1903
In 1903/4, Greve serves a prison sentence in Bonn for
defrauding his friend Kilian
Greve & Else live in Wollerau & Paris-Plage until 1906,
then in Berlin until Greve disappears in July 1909
He roams the Unites States until he appears as Grove in
Manitoba, in 1912
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And WHO was she??
She was born Else Ploetz in 1874
In Berlin, in the 1890s, she lives with members of the
Stefan George Circle, notably Melchior Lechter &
Ernst Hardt
In 1901, she marries August Endell, one of the
“Masters” surrounding George, in Munich
The Endells move to Berlin; Greve soon becomes a
daily visitor, until the three-some head for Palermo in
Jan1903 (Endell is left behind in Naples)
Else & Greve are reunited when he gets out of prison in
June 1904; they remain together until Greve disappears
in July 1909
Else follows Greve to Pittsburgh in June 1910
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Stefan George
A gruesome end in Kentucky…
They operate a small farm near Sparta, Kentucky until
Greve leaves her in the fall of 1911
According to Else, the Greve she joined in America
upheld a “back to nature” ideal, including blonde &
blue-eyed virginity, & sexual abstinence
There are also hints in Else’s autobiography that the
relationship was rocky before Greve left her again, and
this time for good
Since our scandalous pair WAS married in 1907, both
became bigamists in 1913 & 1914 respectively!
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Else Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven
FPG became Grove in 1912,
but what became of Else???
She modelled in nearby Cincinnati, & made her way to
New York
There, she married Leo, the black sheep of the
illustrious Freytag-Loringhoven family, in Nov 1913
She made herself 10 years younger -- no doubt, to
match the groom’s age, & used her maiden name,
Ploetz
She was now titled “The Baroness”, but still penniless
So: more modelling, but also publications in The Little
Review, & contacts with artists & writers like Man Ray,
Marcel Duchamp, William Carlos Williams, to name
just a few of the more famous…
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Else in 1917:
Oil, Theresa Bernstein, NY
Did Grove hide from Else?
There are certainly indications that he did:
He taught in the remotest corners of remote Manitoba for ten
years
He kept a very low profile, publishing but ONE article -- and in
German! -- during those years
The timing of his first Canadian books was well-synchronized
with her movements from New York to Berlin & Paris
He married his blonde & blue-eyed fellow-teacher
Catherine Wiens in 1914
He made himself six years older, & declared to be a
widower from Moscow, Russia
He told her around 1915/16 that they & their infant daughter
might have to pack up & leave, because of a woman…
He had reason to be scared: had she known of his whereabouts,
she would have come after him…
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Felix Paul’s Career in Canada,
1912-1929
Significance of this Heading:
As one of his very first translations into
German, Greve proposed Meredith’s
Beauchanp’s Career -- that was in 1902
Grove volunteered to provide a spicy story
of his wild college years entitled “Felix
Powell’s Career” in the 1930/40s
Note the clever combination of FPG’s given
names “Felix Paul” & Meredith’s title!
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Felix Paul’s Career I
Re-Inventing a Past
Before Grove emerges as an author from Rapid
City in 1922, he has no reason to compose a
fake autobiography
WHEN he has to take a stand in 1922, due to
publishers’ & readers’ demands, he cleverly
combines the more laudable elements of his
past as Greve with the vastly more desirable
family background of …
… his friend-turned-foe, Kilian, who had him
imprisoned 20 years earlier
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Felix Paul’s Career II
The Canadian Author Emerging
It needs to be said: NOWHERE in Grove’s vast
oeuvre is there any EXPLICIT hint of Else
There ARE, however, hidden implications
galore in Grove’s early works of the 1920s
 Even in Grove’s 1st publication, a sprawling
article entitled “Rousseau als Erzieher” in Der
Nordwesten in late 1914, the very theme
matches Else’s report of Greve’s “Back-toNature” ideal of 1910/11
Dec-4-2003
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2
Felix Paul’s Career III
“Rousseau als Erzieher”
Formally, this essay is reminiscent of Greve’s
two 1903 articles on Oscar Wilde, his first
choice if identification
Thematically, it is reminiscent of Nietzsche’s
essay “Schopenhauer als Erzieher”
As such, the 1914 article also harks back to
Greve’s1901 review of Nietzsche’s Works in the
Münchner Allgemeine
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Oscar Wilde
Felix Paul’s Career IV
Impersonal Nature Essays
Dec-4-2003
Eight years later, in 1922, Grove’s first book,
Over Prairie Trails, appears; its sequel, The
Turn of the Year, is published in 1923
Both are devoid of personal revelations beyond
the here & now
Formally, these nature essays are entirely
indebted to Flaubert’s symbolic realism
Greve had adopted it while in prison in 1903/4
Else says: Greve liked Flaubert, so he wanted
to BE Flaubert -That holds true for Grove as well, and to the
2
end
of
his
life
gd
Flaubert
Felix Paul’s Career V
Settlers of the Marsh (1925 1)
This was Grove’s next book, and his 1st
novel
Though set in the Manitoba pioneer
district near Waldersee (Odense in the
novel), it is ENTIRELY devoted to Else
It can be considered a rather mean
monument set to her memory, as we shall
see
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Felix Paul’s Career VI
Settlers (1925 2): Kentucky
When this book was published, Else was back
in Berlin
Grove’s first novel can be considered a
therapeutic “coming to terms” with the rather
cowardly Kentucky ending of his decadelong , intense & rocky relationship with Else
Apart from some basic biographical givens -such as her age (she was 38 in 1911, he was 33) - he basically limits his description to their joint
& otherwise poorly documented year of 1910/11
2
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Felix Paul’s Career VII
Settlers (1925 3): Black & White
The protagonist Niels is, like FPG, 30 years old
when he arrives in Canada
Unlike FPG, Niels has no shady past
But both are tireless workers
Niels clears the land, sows & reaps, & builds a
white mansion “on a bluff” near a creek
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Felix Paul’s Career VII
Settlers (1925 3): A Bluff…
Who has ever driven around Waldersee
KNOWS that the landscape is as flat as a table
top
However, the foremost Grove-Country
topographer Richard Ottenbreit, UW, has
identified a location on the Grassy River where
there IS something like a “bluff”, no matter
how modest
Sparta, Kentucky, as the REAL, though
unacknowledged setting of the novel, is nestled
between fairly sizeable hills
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Felix Paul’s Career VIII
Settlers (1925 4): White & Black
A perfect mate for Niels would have been his
neighbour’s daughter, blonde & blue-eyed
Ellen
But the anti-heroine, Clara Vogel, Niels
opposite in every way, gets to him first
Unlike Niels, who, at age 30, is still virginal (!),
she is experienced, even depraved
One fateful night, they kiss… as did Else &
Greve at Christmas 1902
Niels feels obliged to marry her
2
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Felix Paul’s Career IX
Settlers (1925 5): A gruesome end
Needless to say, this union is headed for disaster: he
works as hard as ever, she adheres to her depraved
lifestyle
Sex seems to play no more part in their marriage -- like
in Kentucky
Clara/Else is depicted as horribly old; her pathetic
attempts to hide her age with make-up & henna are not
working
Else was 38 years old in 1911; she had started to dye her hair at
27 in 1903, while Greve was in prison
Dec-4-2003
More & more often, she escapes to “the city” on lame
pretexts, such as dental appointments
Eventually, she even invites her suitors to Niels’ white
mansion
2
gd This is when he sees no other way out but to shoot her
Felix Paul’s Career X
Settlers (1925 6): A kitschy ending
A symbolic seven years must Niels atone for
this crime in Stony Mountain prison
From Else’s perspective, their relationship
lasted closer to ten years, from fall 1902 to late
1911
The novel ends on a hopeful note: after his
release, Niels & Ellen -- now middle-aged, but
still more or less virginal -- have a good talk
 It is implied that they will be united some fine
day (soon)…
I wouldn’t swear to it, but the two may even walk
off together into the sunset, holding hands…
Dec-4-2003
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2
Felix Paul’s Career Xa
Settlers (1925 6a):7, 9, or 10 years?
Dec-4-2003
gd
The symbolic SEVEN years may stand for the duration
of his involvement with Else from start to finish, 19021909, from FPG’s view-point
It is interesting, that from Else’s perspective, their
involvement lasted closer to TEN years, from 1902
through 1911
Objectively speaking, their relationship spanned NINE
years, counting from the fall of 1902, when Else dreamt
of Greve while on her “womb-squeeze” excursion on
the island Föhr, until the fall of 1911, when Greve left
her in Kentucky
Note that TWO of the nine years they spent apart:
1903, when Greve was in prison, & 1909/10, when he
had left Europe behind! So, FPG had a point, after 2
Felix Paul’s Career XI
Settlers (1925 7): Infrastructures
Sparta, Kentucky, lies ca. 120 km southwest from
Cincinnati, Ohio
Winnipeg, “the city”, lies ca. 120 km southeast from
Waldersee
In 1910/11 for the 1st, and in ca. 1917/18 for the 2nd
location, both routes were connected by rail, studded
with train stations in small towns at about 5-mile
intervals
Waldersee was predominantly German-speaking -Winnipeg was not
Sparta was not predominantly German-speaking -- but
Cincinnati was
Felix Paul’s Career XII
Settlers (1925 8): Main source FrL1
All we know about the scandalous pair’s
Sparta, Kentucky time, stems from Else’s
archival collection at the University of
Maryland, College Park
Many of her German poems there are
dedicated to FPG, but on only one she added
“Sparta, Kentucky / am Eagle Creek”
This allowed me to pinpoint, in 1990, an
important part (one-third, to be precise) of
Greve’s “lost” three years in the US
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Felix Paul’s Career XIII
Settlers (1925 9): Main source FrL2
On another poem, “Wolkzug”, Else states:
“Das war in Palermo -- als Felix Paul Greve in Deutschland im
Gefängnis war, meinet- d.h. seinetwegen! Ich holte ihn ein Jahr
später in Kölln [sic!] ab. Ein Engländer "Freund" (Kilian, gd)
hatte ihn hineingebracht. Aus Eifersucht. Von da machte er
seine Übersetzercarriere. In Kentucky -- verliess er mich -- in
der Einöde -- schickte mir -- verborgen -- $20 von da -- nichts.
Ich konnte kein Englisch -- kannte keine Arbeit -- war
hochmütig -- wurde für verrückt gehalten. Else…”
This note sums up better than ANY other known source
the couple’s ten-year relationship, from the 1st
involuntary abandonment in Palermo in 1903, to the
final & voluntary one in 1911
2
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“Wolkzug”
Felix Paul’s Career XIV
Settlers (1925 10): Conclusion 1
If, as suggested earlier, Settlers can be read as a
therapeutic exercise, it can also be viewed as
wishful thinking:
I believe that Greve would have LOVED to kill
Else in whatever fashion possible in Kentucky
Domestic violence was certainly in the picture
then, as it was in Berlin around 1907/8
Grove’s novel means to alleviate the author’s
guilty conscience, AND…
…to JUSTIFY Greve’s abandonment of Else in
Sparta
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XV
Settlers (1925 11 ): Conclusion 2
HE fell prey to a depraved woman
Without HER, he would have achieved great
things…
He HAD to free himself from her clutches to
fulfill his writer’s vocation… etc.
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XVI
Settlers (1925 12 ): Conclusion 3
In the overly-saintly stance of the protagonist lies the
novel’s greatest weakness:
There is NO PLAUSIBLE REASON why Niels should
have felt OBLIGED, after ONE fleeting encounter, to
marry bad Clara
Like Greve in Kentucky, Niels has no use for sex, so,
even THAT cannot be construed as a valid
motivation…
It is even harder to believe that worldly Clara would
have accepted his proposal, & gone into voluntarily
rural exile
In any case, in REAL life, Greve was a willing
participant in Else’s seduction of Christmas 1902!
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XVII
A Search for America (1927 1)
This openly autobiographical novel is a masterpiece of narration:
It blends Dichtung & Wahrheit à la Goethe, though
with perhaps a different proportion of Fiction
versus Fact
It skillfully draws on all sorts of genres, from the
picaresque- & the adventure novel, to the
Bildungsroman, and satirical stories like
Grimmelshausen’s Simplicissimus & Voltaire’s
Candide
There is not a trace of Else in its nearly 400
pages, but this very absence is a telling one…
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XVIII
A Search for America (1927 2)
It is Grove’s fourth book
Else is by now in Paris, and even IF Settlers &
The Search had been instant bestsellers,
spreading like wild-fire all over the world, she
wouldn’t have had a chance to read them,
never mind recognizing herself in the former,
nor Greve in the latter:
In Berlin, she was destitute, selling newspapers in
the streets, & checking in & out of charitable or
mental institutions
In Paris, at least her frame-of-mind was better for a
while, but after not even 18 months, she committed
suicide there in mid-December 1927
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XIX
A Search for America (1927 3)
Grove’s zeal to reveal the more glorious aspects of his
past lends his narrative a confessional touch, though he
understandably omits the least savory ones
Apart from his cosmopolitan upbringing in an affluent
Anglo-Swedish family, he addresses his American
adventures:
Dec-4-2003
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His brief tenure at a Toronto “eatery” that resembles Dante’s
Inferno
His fateful encounter with two counterfeiters in New York
His first job there, selling encyclopedias
His -- of course, innocent! -- participation in a major book
scam
His experience in a furniture factory
His tramp- & hobo days while moving west
His tenure at a Bonanza farm “in the Dakotas”
2
And finally, his moving north to Winnipeg
Lining Paper Map, ASA 2nd ed.
The Bonanza Farm (near Fargo)
Felix Paul’s Career XX
A Search for America (1927 4)
Of the three years Greve dwelled in the States,
from his disappearance in 1909, to his
emergence as Grove in Manitoba in 1912, only
one-and-a-half years are covered in the book
All the New York based adventures happened
BEFORE Else followed him
The west-ward migration took place AFTER
he left her
OMITTED is the time he spent in Pittsburgh
before her arrival, and the year they spent
together in Sparta, Kentucky
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XXI
A Search for America (1927 5)
This means that Grove gave the “Else-inAmerica” complex VERY SPECIAL treatment
in his previous book
Its importance is thus NOT negated by its
omission from ASA, but rather, paradoxically,
enhanced, & given elevated status!
The fact that Grove composed Settlers before
the Search for America illustrates that its story
took rather urgent precedence over all the
other episodes
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XXII
Jane Atkinson (ca. 1920 1)
In many ways, Jane Atkinson is a counter-piece
to Settlers
This novel is also loaded with references to
FPG's past, this time, to his Munich days in
1901/2…
…AND, enigmatically, to the highly interesting
“Fanny Essler” complex of 1904/5
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XXIII
Jane Atkinson (ca. 1920 2)
If it weren’t for these redeeming features, the
novel would be devoid of interest, in my
opinion
Before it was e-published in 2000, there was
only an ungainly typescript of 284 leaves of
poor & thin "onion-skin" paper
Here, as an example, is the Title-Page
2
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Grove's Jane Atkinson:
The Title-Page
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XXIV
Jane Atkinson (ca. 1920 3)
The novel is set in “Stockton” -- that is,
Brandon, Maniboba
The time is roughly contemporary to Grove's
tenure in Rapid City from 1922-1929
As in Settlers, we have here stark, black &
white character contrasts:
The heroine, Jane, though dark-haired, is ALL
GOOD… So is her neighbour, Arthur
That is the casting of Niels & Ellen in reverse
Her husband Jim, Arthur's brother, is ALL BAD -much like Clara Vogel
Not much is going on over a couple of decades.
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XXV
Jane Atkinson (ca. 1920 4)
Even the implied triangle between Jane & the two
brothers fails to keep the reader's attention
In the end, for no discernable reason whatsoever, “bad”
Jim undergoes a profound transformation into “good”
Jim
Gripped by unexplained remorse, Jim drives his car
over a cliff
Jane, by some unlikely coincidence in the vicinity,
rushes down to his side & asks him to forgive HER for
having "been harsh" with him…
Then, concluding this drama & the book, comes the
following punch-line. It reads: "In death he had his last
great wish. Her hands were touching his brow."
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XXVI
Jane Atkinson (ca. 1920 5)
There is a word for this kind of literature, & it
is “Kitsch”
The ending of Settlers, & most of Jane
Atkinson, fits in perfectly with what has been
recognized as a genre flourishing around 1900
Respectable authors like Hermann Hesse
indulged in it, as did less eminent ones like Karl
May; as a genre, Kitsch is akin to Harlequin- &
Dime-novels
These were often serialized for massconsumption -- something Grove considered
doing on more than one occasion
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XXVII
Jane Atkinson (ca. 1920 6): Link 1
Dec-4-2003
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Here now THREE major links between FPG's dualtrack lives:
Grove considered using the pseudonym ”Andrew
R. Rutherford” for this novel -- this person was a
renowned Scottish Judge, & Kilian’s maternal
grandfather
His daughter’s name, & later Kilian’s daughter’s
name as well, was Jane.
By laying claim to having blood-relations with
these good people, Grove appropriated Kilian’s
family background for himself.
He used this fabricated lineage for ALL
biographical information about himself, including
his two autobiographies of 1927 (ASA, e-©2001) & In2
Search of Myself, 1946
Felix Paul’s Career XXVIII
Jane Atkinson (ca. 1920 7): Link 2
Dec-4-2003
In guise of a rich Jewish banker from Montreal, we
recognize Karl Wolfskehl, the “Zeus of Schwabing”,
whose hospitality both Else, with Endell, & Greve had
enjoyed
Here is how Jane describes him to a friend: "… like
Michelangelo's Moses”
Wolfskehl, who paraded as Dionysos or Baal in
carnival processions, sported indeed an uncanny
resemblance with Michelangelo’s famous statue of
1511, especially, in half-profile
Greve, as a student of archaeology and Classics in Bonn
between 1898 & 1900, had taken a course on the
Renaissance artist -- with another course on Byron, & a
third on oceanography, these were no doubt refreshing2
departures from an otherwise bland menu
gd
Karl Wolfskehl
Felix Paul’s Career XXIX
Jane Atkinson (ca. 1920 8): Link 3
Last, not least, here now the rather perplexing link to
the 1904/5 Fanny Essler complex:
Some thirty pages into the text, we find a self-quote
from Greve's 1905 novel, Fanny Essler, about Else’s life
in Berlin, in the 1890s
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This cameo scene concerns a detailed account of
Fanny’s/Jane's "maiden aunt" who has, in her thin grey hair, a
grotesque array of tortoise-shell combs
These are remnants from a shop she owned on a major
shopping street in Berlin / Toronto, namely, Friedrichstrasse /
Yonge Street…
The significance of this scene is still a mystery. For some
reason, I think that it might be related to Thomas Mann's
Buddenbrooks -- Mann became famous with this family chronic
in 1901. Greve briefly shared an address with Mann at the
Pension Gisela in Munich in 1902, & we have two 1939 letters2
by Mann to Grove in the UM Archives
Thomas Mann
Felix Paul’s Career XXX
The Fanny Essler Complex, 1904/5
 One of the most astounding collaborations ever must be Greve &
Else’s co-production of seven poems BY a certain Fanny Essler, &
a novel ABOUT Else/Fanny Essler, with the TITLE Fanny Essler
 Thanks to Claude Martin’s masterly edition of Gide’s
“Conversation avec un Allemand” in the October 1974 issue of the
Bulletin des amis d’André Gide, Greve’s wild plans for this complex
can be followed -- here is what he had to say in a letter to Gide,
dated October 17, 1904
 "Il me faut travailler d'une façon bien singulière. Je ne suis
plus une personne, j'en sommes trois: je suis 1. M. Felix Paul
Greve; 2. Mme Else Greve; 3. Mme Fanny Essler. La dernière
dont je vous enverrai prochainement les poèmes, et dont les
poèmes -- encore un secret -- sont adressés à moi, est un
poète déjà assez considéré dans certaines parties de
l'Allemagne" (40).
 Note the interesting use of the masculine gender in referring to Fanny
Essler as "un poète (!) déjà assez consideré (!)", and the narcissistic
element in the fact that Greve himself is the subject of his/her poems.
2
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André Gide
Felix Paul’s Career XXXI
The Fanny Essler Complex, 1904/5
He goes on to explain plans for Fanny Essler’s prose:
Mme Fanny Essler has written two autobiographical novels in
"Bonn sur Rhin" where Greve had been imprisoned -- note
again the gender confusion!
As her mentor, he is simply preparing them for publication
He furthermore toys with the idea of having one of them
published as an anonymous autobiography entitled … Fanny
Essler!
"Jusqu'à présent elle n'a publié que des vers. Mais moi, F. P.
Greve, son patron et introducteur, prépare la publication de deux
romans qu'elle a écrits dans la prison de Bonn sur Rhin...
Personne ne se doute de cet état des choses...L'un des romans de
Mme Essler, qui paraîtra sans nom d'auteur et que M. l'éditeur
croit une autobiographie, aura pour titre: Fanny Essler.”
Dec-4-2003
• However, when the book came out in 1905, the title was still in
place, but Greve's name was sitting squarely in the author's
position: Fanny Eßler: ein Roman von Felix Paul Greve
gd
2
Felix Paul’s Career XXXII
The Fanny Essler Complex, 1904/5
About 20 years later, Else has this to say:
"Felix had written two novels. They were dictated
by me as far as material was concerned; it was my
life and persons out of my life. He did the executive
part of the business, giving the thing the
conventional shape and dress... They must be fearful
books as far as art is concerned." (Ab 35).
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XXXIII
The Fanny Essler Complex, 1904/5
Else describes here a clear-cut division of labour along
form / content lines: SHE provided Greve with the raw
material of her rich, biographical experience in
perhaps imperfect form, HE applied his remarkable
forming and marketing talents.
For the novel, Else received no credit for her
contribution whatsoever. For the poems, she was at
least indirectly acknowledged by the joint “Fanny
Essler” pseudonym
Never again was FPG to create anything of the inspired
quality that distinguished the seven Fanny Essler
poems
2
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Felix Paul’s Career XXXIV
Fanny Essler Complex: Conclusion
Dec-4-2003
FPG was a great craftsman & imitator -- in a
way, he always remained a translator at heart
He sadly was lacking the genius he believed he
had. Following the Stefan George Mache for his
poems, & Flaubert’s symbolic realism for his
prose without variation, he was trapped in
traditional patterns that have little appeal
today
Else, on the other hand, embraced avant-garde
currents like expressionism & dadaism with an
open mind, and has rightfully earned her place
among some of the leading artists of the 20th
2
century
gd