My idea of Max Weber was shaped by the way I encountered him in writing the story of the von Richthofen sisters; and one aspect of that shaping was his being paired contrastively with D. H. Lawrence. In consequence I saw Weber's work from an oblique angle; nor did I ever know it as thoroughly as did the other people attending the 1995 Max Weber (British Sociological Association) conference. I was well aware, when I published The von Richthofen Sisters that I was not a Weber scholar, and not surprised that there were reviewers who found the book lacking in scholarly decorum.