Famous German Novellas of the 19th Century: Immensee, Peter Schlemihl, Brigitta

Theodor Storm: Immensee / Adelbert von Chamisso: Peter Schlemihl / Adalbert Stifter: Brigitta ---Theodor Storm (1817 - 88), poet and short-story writer, was born in Schleswig... As early as 1843 he had made himself known as a lyrical poet of the Romantic School, ...but he wrote nothing that excels, in depth and tenderness of feeling, the charming story of Immensee; and taking his work all in all, Storm still ranks today as a master of the short story in Ger-man literature, rich though it is in this form of prose-fiction. (C. W. Bell) --- Peter Schlemihl, one of the pleasantest fancies of the days when Germany delighted in romance, was first published in 1814. The story is a poet's whim. Later writings of Chamisso (1781-1838) proved him to be one of the best lyric poets of the romance school of his time, entirely German in his tone of thought. (Henry Morley) --- Brigitta is usually regarded as an early example of German realism and written by probably the most accomplished Austrian prose writer of the nineteenth century, Adalbert Stifter (1805 - 68)..., an illustration of Stifter's didactic con-cern with inner beauty in contrast to outward appearances... Stifter instructs us in more than inner beauty by demonstrating for us - perhaps unwittingly - that the preferred and positive values of the civilized world are always already informed by their antinomies. (Robert C. Holub in: Brigitta, or the Lesson of Realism)