Table of Contents

Introduction: Reawakening German Realism - Todd Kontje
Adalbert Stifter's Brigitta, or the Lesson of Realism - Robert C. Holub
Mühlbach, Ranke, and the Truth of Historical Fiction - Brent O. Peterson
"In the Heart of the Heart of the Country": Regional Histories as National History in Gustav Freytag's Die Ahnen (1872-80)(1872-80) -
A Woman's Post: Gender and Nation in Historical Fiction by Louise von François - Thomas C. Fox
Friedrich Spielhagen: The Demon of Theory and the Decline of Reputation - Jeffrey L Sammons
Wilhelm Raabe and the German Colonial Experience - John Pizer
From National Task to Individual Pursuit: The Poetics of Work in Freytag, Stifter, and Raabe - Hans J. Rindisbacher
Das Republikanische, das Demokratische, das Pantheistische: Jewish Identity in Berthold Auerbach's Novels - Irene Stocksiecker Di Maio
E. Marlitt: Narratives of Virtuous Desire - Kirsten Belgum
The Appeal of Karl May in the Wilhelmine Empire: Emigration, Modernization, and the Need for Heroes - Nina Berman
Making Way for the Third Sex: Liberal and Antiliberal Impulses in Mann's Portrayal of Male-Male Desire in His Early Short Fiction - Robert Tobin
Effi Briest and the End of Realism - Russell A. Berman

About the Author

HANS J. RINDISBACHER is Professor of German Studies at Pomona College, California. JEFFREY L. SAMMONS is Professor Emeritus, Yale University THOMAS C. FOX is Professor of German at the University of Alabama. He is the author of Stated Memory: East Germany and the Holocaust (Camden House, 1999) and co-editor of Companion to the Works of Lessing (Camden House, 2005).

Reviews

This outstanding collection of essays on the writing of this period provides an excellent overview of this great age of fiction. The contributors are among the very best of German literary critics....
*CHOICE*

The volume's contribution in documenting current scholarly trends in a field that, according to Kontje, suffers from a 'bad reputation,' is great: it opens new windows onto neglected areas of consideration.
*GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW*

...notable for its welcome focus on national identity and on marginalized voices...
*GERMAN QUARTERLY*

These essays are all excellent studies that should stimulate renewed interest in 19th-century German realism.
*MONATSHEFTE*

Major figures of realism are treated - Stifter, Freytag, Raabe and Fontane - but also lesser-known names such as Mühlbach, Louise von Francois, Spielhagen, Auerbach, and even Karl May, author of Winnetou, in connection with German emigration to the United States....
*ETUDES GERMANIQUES*