Freytag

Freytag, GUSTAV, German novelist and playwright, was born 13th July 1816, at Kreuzburg, in Silesia, studied at Breslau and Berlin, and from 1839 till 1847 was a privat-docent of German language and literature in the former university. Afterwards he lived successively at Dresden, at Leipzig, near Gotha, and (since 1879) at Wiesbaden. Editor from 1848-70 of Die Grenzboten, and a deputy to the North German Diet, he was with the Crown Prince (on whose services to the nation he subsequently wrote a book in 1889) during the war of 1870-71. His comedies and other plays—Die Valentine (1846), Die Journalisten (1853), &c.—proved brilliant successes; but his greatest achievement in literature is Soll und Haben (1855; 40th ed. 1893), a realistic novel of German commercial life, which was translated into English under the title of Debit and Credit (1858). It was followed, but not surpassed or even equalled, by Die Vrolorne Handschrift (1864; Eng., The Lost Manuscript, 1865), and the series (1872-81) called Die Ahnen (Our Ancestors), which includes Ingo und Ingraban, Das Nest der Zaunkönige, Die Brüder vom Deutschen Hause, Markus König, Die Geschwister, and Aus einer kleinen Stadt. All these, with his poems, his sketches of German life, and an autobiography (trans. 1890), are comprised in the collected edition of his works (22 vols. 1886-88). He died 30th April 1895. See Alberti, Gustav Freytag (1885).