First World War period

World War I serves as the endpoint in Mrs. Gardner’s description of a literary period spanning 1870 to 1914. The reference situates her scholarly specialty within a precise historical frame rather than recounting the war itself.

Reference and Scope

While speaking with Conrad in her Cabbagetown home, Mrs. Gardner described her expertise as European literature between 1870 and 1914, defining the span as running from the Franco-Prussian War to World War I. In this account, the war functions as a chronological boundary for a field of literary study.

Context in the Gardner Household

Mrs. Gardner was a retired comparative literature professor at Emory University, and she could read French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German. Her husband, also a retired Emory University faculty member, had taught English, specializing in early-nineteenth-century poets and essayists. Their different scholarly periods place her World War I reference within the couple’s broader academic backgrounds.