Theodor Fontane (1819-1898) was a German realist who worked for most of his life as a journalist, poet, editor, theater critic, and travel essayist. He could not attain the financial stability to write novels until he was almost sixty, at which point he began writing historical novels. He eventually concentrated on stories about Berlin society and the decline of the aristocracy, such as ‘Trials and Tribulations’ and ‘Jenny Treibel’. One of his best known works was ‘Effi Briest’, a novel about a teenage girl whose family arranges a marriage between her and Baron von Innstetten, a promising 38-year-old government official. The remarkably passive and detached young girl soon finds herself entangled in an adulterous affair. Fontane’s brilliant dialogue, poetic realism, and strong thematic elements put ‘Effi Briest’ in the arena of such adultery tragedies as ‘Anna Karenina’ and ‘Madame Bovary’.
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