German · b. 1819
Theodor Fontane was a German novelist regarded as the foremost master of nineteenth-century German realism, best known for Effi Briest.
Theodor Fontane came to the novel late in life after a long career as a journalist and travel writer, and became the leading German realist of his era.
His masterpiece Effi Briest (1895), the story of a young woman destroyed by the rigid social conventions and honor codes of Prussian society, is often ranked among the great realist novels of adultery, alongside Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. His other novels, including Frau Jenny Treibel, offer subtle, ironic portraits of Berlin society.
Fontane is celebrated for his delicate irony, social insight, and humane realism, a crucial bridge between nineteenth-century and modern German literature.
by Theodor Fontane
Effi Briest, seventeen, marries the older Baron von Instetten and follows him to a posting in Pomerania. Lonely and frightened, she has a brief affair with Major Crampas. Years later, her husband discovers the letters, challenges Crampas to a duel, kills him, divorces Effi, and separates her from her daughter. Effi dies of illness and grief.
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