Description: Richard Bermann's 1913 travel book Ireland is significant in a number of ways: it represents the last comprehensive look by an external visitor at the island of Ireland before the First World War; it astutely identifies the controversies surrounding Home Rule (an interview with Sir Edward Carson is included); it takes a sober snap-shot of Irish society at the time, including mannerisms, idiosyncrasies, and contradictions; it incorporates deliberations on history and poetry, tourism, hospitality and industry, and many other things.
Brief description: Richard Arnold Bermann (1883-1839), who also wrote under his nom de plume Arnold Höllriegel, was between the 1910s and 1930s one of the leading journalists and travel writers in German. Born in Vienna, he moved to Berlin in his early 20s to write for the Berliner Tageblatt and later for several other leading German and Austrian papers. His travels led him all over the world; amongst other things, he reported widely on Holywood's film industry and became friends with Charley Chaplin; he also accompanied Count Ladislaus Almásy, immortalized as 'The English Patient' in the eponymous novel and film, on one of his Sahara expeditions. His report on Ireland was the first of his many travel writings that appeared as a book. A liberal, and born to Jewish parents, he had to emigrate to the USA after the German annexation of Austria in 1938. He died during a stay in the artists' sanatorium Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY.