Theodor Fontane

Theodor Fontane (1819 – 1898) was a 19th-century German-language novelist. He published the novels for which he is known today later in life after a long career as a journalist. He is considered one of the leading writers of realism, not only because he took great pains to ensure factual accuracy of details in fictional scenes, but also because he depicted his characters in terms of what they said or did and refrained from overtly imputing motives to characters. Fontane's importance as a novelist of great popular success is especially noteworthy because many of his works delve into topics that were more or less taboo for discussion in polite society of his day, including marital infidelity, and women abandoning children or committing suicide. His characters range from lower-middle class to Prussian nobility.

Most of Fontane's life was spent in cosmopolitan Berlin, the thriving capital of Bismarck's newly-unified Germany.

Well-known novels

• 1878: Vor dem Sturm - Set in Germany at the end of Napoleonic domination
• 1880: L'Adultera
• 1885: Unterm Birnbaum (English: Under the Pear Tree) - A wildly popular murder mystery, where the mystery is not who did it, but whether they will get away with it or not.
• 1887: Irrungen, Wirrungen - About an affair between a wealthy officer and a lower-middle-class Berlin girl. Consider to be Fontane's first masterpiece.
• 1891: Unwiederbrichlich (English: Beyond Recall) - About a troubled marriage in Holstein in 1859-1861, five years before the German/Danish war.
• 1892: Frau Jenny Treibel - About attempts by a schoolmaster's daughter to marry new wealth.
• 1894: Effi Briest - About conventional demands that a wronged husband must seek retribution for a long-past adultery, thus ruining a not unhappy marriage in the present.