Berthold Auerbach (1812–1882)

Berthold Auerbach was the pen name of Moses Baruch Auerbach, born to a Jewish family in the village of Nordstetten in the Black Forest, in the Kingdom of Württemberg. He graduated from the Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium in Stuttgart and was intended by his father for a career as a rabbi. However, after studying philosophy at Tübingen, Munich, and Heidelberg, and the works of Baruch Spinoza, he chose to devote himself to literature instead. While still a student in Heidelberg and under the pseudonym "Theobald Chauber," he produced a biography of Frederick the Great. Another early publication was Das Judentum und die neueste Litteratur (Judaism and Recent Literature, 1836), which was followed by his first novel, Spinoza (1837). In 1841, he published a German translation of Spinoza's works with a biography, in five volumes. Auerbach's greatest fame and popularity came from the works he published on the lives of country folk, especially the peasants of the Black Forest and the Bavarian Alps, beginning in 1843. That year, he published Schwarzwälder Dorfgeschichten (Black Forest Village Stories). His stories and novels in this genre were acclaimed for their realistic settings, psychological insights, graceful style, and humor. His most famous book, Auf der Höhe (From the Heights) first published in 1861, was translated into nearly all European languages. In 1847, he married Augusta Schreiber, who died in childbirth the following year in childbirth. He remarried in Vienna to Nina Landesmann, a sister of the poet Hieronymus Lorm, and they settled in Dresden. Ten years later, they moved to Berlin, then the capital of Prussia, which became their permanent home. There Auerbach came into contact with leading writers and artists, and was received at court; but he continued to spend every summer in his native village in the Black Forest, seeking new inspiration for his writings. A complete collection of his works in 22 volumes was published in 1863-1864. His voluminous correspondence, extending over a period of 52 years, was published posthumously in 1884.