She first became interested in Novalis in the early 1960s, after hearing a musical setting of his mystical Hymns to the Night. Background įitzgerald first came upon the notion of blue flowers having literary significance in ' The Fox', a short story by D. Von Hardenberg reads his draft chapter to Sophie and others, and asks 'what is the meaning of this blue flower?' No definitive answer is given within the novel, leaving the reader to provide his or her own interpretation.

In it, a young man longs to see the blue flower that 'lies incessantly at his heart, so that he can imagine and think about nothing else'. The blue flower of the novel's title is the subject of the first chapter of a story that von Hardenberg is writing. The couple become engaged a year later but never marry as Sophie dies of consumption a few days after her 15th birthday. In 1794 the 22 year old von Hardenberg becomes mystically attracted to the 12-year-old Sophie von Kühn, an unlikely choice for an intellectual of noble birth given Sophie's age and lack of education and culture, as well as her physical plainness and negligible material prospects. It covers the years from 1790 to 1797 when von Hardenberg was a student of history, philosophy and law at the universities of Jena, Leipzig and Wittenberg, and before he embarked on his professional life. The novel is based on the life of Friedrich von Hardenberg (1772–1801) before he became famous under the name Novalis.

In 2012, The Observer named The Blue Flower one of 'the ten best historical novels'. Mariner Books went on to publish paperback editions of all of Penelope Fitzgerald's books. It is a fictional treatment of the early life and troubled relationships of Friedrich von Hardenberg who, under the pseudonym Novalis, became a foundational figure of German Romanticism.įirst published in hardback by Flamingo, the novel became the first paperback title offered by Mariner Books, then a new imprint of Houghton Mifflin.

The Blue Flower is the final novel by the British author Penelope Fitzgerald, published in 1995.

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald