August Lewald (1792–1871) is chiefly remembered for his editorship of the highly successful journal, Europa. His closely-observed Vormärz sketches and novels were also much read and reviewed by his contemporaries but have since been largely overlooked. They are the focus of this study. Lewald’s Jewish parentage and his wide experience in commerce and the theatre gave him insight into key preoccupations and conditions of his day, an insight acknowledged by contemporaries. Album aus Paris is a collection of sketches from the revered ‘Hauptstadt der Welt’; Memoiren eines Banquiers is a satire that plays with the ‘rich Jewish banker’ stereotype, and Theater-Roman exposes the ‘moderne Thorheiten und Schwächen’ rampant ‘in der civilisirten Gesellschaft zu Mitte des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts’.
