Wilhelm Hauff was a writer of extraordinary fancy and invention, but working for a more obvious purpose, and producing narratives more related in character to popular legends. He was born in 1802, at Stuttgard, and in early life showed a great predilection for telling childish narratives. Being designed for the theological profession, he went to the University of Tubingen in 1820. --- On leaving the university, Hauff became tutor to the children of the Wurttemberg minister of war, General Ernst Eugen Freiherr von Hugel, and for them wrote his Tales, which he published in his "Almanach of Tales for the year 1826". --- Only a few of his famous tales take place in Germany, among them the "Nose, the Dwarf" and "The Cold Heart." --- Hauff needs only to be known to become popular in any country. His works, which are somewhat numerous, were published in a complete edition by the poet Gustav Schwab, in 1830. Wilhelm Hauff died in 1827, before he had completed his twenty-sixth year.

Franz Grillparzer (1791 - 1872) was an Austrian dramatic poet. "The Jewess of Toledo" may perhaps be said to mark the climax of his productive activity. Written in 1851, it was first performed in Prague in 1872, after Grillparzer's death. It is an eminently modern drama of passion in classical dignity of form. The play is properly called "The Jewess of Toledo"; for Rachel, the Jewess, is at the centre of the action, and is a marvelous creation – "a mere woman, nothing but her sex". The King of Castile, however, though relatively passive, is the most important character. He is attracted to Rachel by a charm that he has never known in his coldly virtuous English consort, and, after an error forgivable because made comprehensible, is taught the duty of personal sacrifice to morality and to the state.

"Colas Breugnon" is a charming romance of life in Burgundy three hundred years ago. It is an "autobiographical" novel, the story being told in the first person by Colas, who reviews his fifty years of life, and describes all its joys and sorrows. The story is gay and humorous, and full of wise observations about life. --- "Colas Breugnon is the jovial Burgundian, the lusty wood-carver, the practical joker always fond of his glass, the droll fellow. Before everything, Colas Breugnon is a free man. He loves his king, but only so long as the king leaves him his liberty; he loves his wife, but follows his own bent; he is on excellent terms with the priest of a neighboring parish, but never goes to church; he idolizes his children, but his vigorous individuality makes him unwilling to live with them. He is friendly with all, but subject to none; he is freer than the king; he has that sense of humor characteristic of the free spirit to whom the whole world belongs. From the artistic point of view, 'Colas Breugnon' may perhaps be regarded as Rolland's most successful work. This is because it is woven in one piece, because it flows with a continuous rhythm, because its progress is never arrested by the discussion of thorny problems. It is written throughout in the same key. The first sentence gives the note like a tuning fork, and thence the entire book takes its pitch. Throughout, the same lively melody is sustained. The writer employs a peculiarly happy form. His style is poetic without being actually versified; it has a melodious measure without being strictly metrical. This work is unlike any of Rolland's other writings. It is not an historic study, a critical appreciation, a philosophic essay, nor yet even, in the strictest sense of the word, a novel. It is rather a volume of reminiscences as told by a man of fifty; and the very aimlessness with which this man talks is in itself a pleasure; for Breugnon is himself the one subject of the book, holding our attention by the display of a wayward, sympathetic, and aggressive personality." (Stefan Zweig)

"This is not exactly a book of downright ghost-stories as the cover makes belief. It is rather a collection of facts that never quite explained themselves. All that the collector is certain of is, that one man insisted upon dying because he believed himself to be haunted; another man either made up a wonderful lie and stuck to it, or visited a very strange place; while the third man was indubitably crucified by some person or persons unknown, and gave an extraordinary account of himself." (Rudyard Kipling) --- The tales are quite as grisly as any one will demand, although Mr. Kipling makes fun of all of them, and insinuates that they can be traced back to some variety of Indian fever or to the high spirits which are absorbed from bottles with popular labels. (N.Y. Herald)

The gentle melancholy of two people coming together in a way which can never lead to full satisfaction, the quiet tragedy of a separation not forced by external powers but by the constant pressure of circumstances-this is what sounds through this splendid story. "Trials and Tribulations" is built entirely on this motive. An honest sturdy young officer and a decent pretty girl get to know each other on an excursion. Unconsciously they drift into a relation where heart meets heart, the breaking of which causes the deepest pain. But both see clearly from the beginning that there is no other end. For they know that the world is stronger than the individual, and the many small moments than the one supreme. They know it, for they are, like their creator, resigned realists. They shut their eyes only in order not to see the end too near. (Richard M. Meyer)---The interest of Fontane's novels lies rather in character than in action. While he portrays many types characteristic of Berlin and the surrounding region, and is very successful in rendering local color and the atmosphere of the particular circle described in each book, his penetration into universal human nature is sufficiently deep to raise him far above provincialism. His effort is to represent people vividly and naturally in their normal relations, not to strain after sensational or even dramatic situations. "Trials and Tribulations" ("Irrungen Wirrungen", 1887) gives an excellent idea of his power. In a gently moving story, told without the forcing of emotion or the contriving of exciting scenes, he deals with the pathos of the relation between a man and a woman, alike in an attractive simplicity of character, but forced apart by difference of rank. The situation is laid before us without expressed censure or protest, and is allowed to have its effect by the sober truth of its presentation. Fontane's is an honest and sincere art, none the less great because unpretentious. (W.A.N.)

"The Lady with the Toy Dog," "Goussiev" and other famous tales by Anton Chekhov (1860-1904). -- Time's revenges or the irony of satisfied desires are treated in "The Lady with the Toy Dog." Yet one cannot say that Chekhov himself is "disillusioned." His sense of spiritual beauty is too strong; and his depth of acceptation of life's pattern forms an aura enveloping his subject. This spiritual aura hovers about it and enwraps the gloomiest, greyest, most sardonic facts of life; death itself cannot diminish it. Examine "Goussiev," a sketch of the death of two worn-out soldiers on board a steamer, when returning from the East, a sketch that is so "modern" in its all-embracing outlook and bold acceptations as to shame nearly all our writers of today. It is so humanly broad, so tender, so infallibly true in its spiritual lightings, and it conveys the mystery of nature and all its transitory processes with sharp precision.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) was a German writer, philosopher, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and other writings substantially influenced the development of German literature. --- The importance of Lessing's masterpiece in comedy, "Minna von Barnhelm," is difficult to exaggerate. It was the beginning of German national drama; and by the patriotic interest of its historical background, by its sympathetic treatment of the German soldier and the German woman, and by its happy blending of the amusing and the pathetic, it won a place in the national heart from which no succeeding comedy has been able to dislodge it. (Ernest Bell)