The German bestseller in the late nineteenth century

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The late nineteenth century was a crucial period for the development of German fiction. Political unification and industrialization were accompanied by the rise of a mass market for German literature, and with it the beginnings of the German bestseller. Offering escape, romance, or adventure, as well as insights into the modern world, nineteenth-century bestsellers often captured the imagination of readers well into the twentieth century and beyond. However, many have been neglected by scholars. This volume offers new readings of literary realism by focusing not on the accepted iontellectual canon but on commercially successful fiction in its material and social contexts. It investigates bestsellers form writers such as Freytag, Dahn, Jensen, Raabe, Viebig, Stifter, Auerbach, Storm, Möllhausen, Marlitt, Suttner, and Thomas Mann. The contributions examine the aesthetic strategies that make the works such a success, and writers' attempts to appeal simultaneously on different levels to different readers. Writers tried to find freedom and be innovative, while also accommodating the expectations of publishers and the marketplace. This volume sheds light on the important effect of the mass market on the writing not just of popular works, but of German prose fiction on all levels