Rosane Rocher describes the not always happy and exemplary, but fascinating life of Ludwig Poley (1805-1885), which contrasts with biographies usually reserved for illustrious scholars. The book explores the challenges that a nineteenth-century German Indologist could face, reveals his strategies for overcoming them, and his character flaws that made him both rejected by his peers and accepted in literary salons. As an illegitimate child, Poley depended on scholarships. He published in Berlin an edition and Latin translation of a Sanskrit text, which he did not submit at the University. Yet,...