Gustav Freytag

Debit and Credit, Volume I (Dodo Press) Gustav Freytag

Gustav Freytag (1816-1895) was a German dramatist and novelist. After attending the gymnasium at Oels (Olesnica), he studied philology at the universities of Breslau (Wroclaw) and Berlin, and in 1838 received his degree with a remarkable dissertation, De Initiis Poeseos Scenicae apud Germanos. In 1839, he settled at Breslau, as Privatdozent in German language and literature, but devoted his principal attention to writing for the stage, achieving considerable success with the comedy Die Brautfahrt: Oder Kunz von der Rosen (1844). This was followed by a volume of unimportant poems, In Breslau (1845), and the dramas Die Valentine (1846) and Graf Waldemar (1847). He at last attained a prominent position with his comedy, Die Journalisten (1853), one of the best German comedies of the 19th century. In 1847, Freytag migrated to Berlin, and in the following year took over, in conjunction with Julian Schmidt, the editorship of Die Grenzboten, a weekly journal which, founded in 1841, now became the leading organ of German and Austrian liberalism. Freytag's literary fame was made universal by the publication in 1855 of his novel, Soll und Haben (Debit and Credit), which was translated into almost all the languages of Europe, including English by Georgiana Harcourt in 1857. It was hailed as one the best German novels of its day, noted for its sturdy but unexaggerated realism, and in many parts highly humorous.