Transcriber's Note:Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source:http://www.archive.org/details/sevenlegends00kelle
This series, of which Keller's "Seven Legends" is the opening volume,will contain books that have become standard in the literatures offoreign countries.
The title which has been chosen is not intended to convey theimpression that none of the books in the series will make a generalappeal (for it is hoped that some of them will become as well-known inthis country as the standard works of our own literature); but ratherto suggest that they will have characteristics and beauties, which canbe most fully enjoyed by the reader of wide culture and cultivatedtaste.
The series will be issued at varying prices, according to number ofpages, and the forthcoming appearance of each new volume will beannounced through the usual medium of the literary periodicals.
AUTHORIZED (AND FIRST) TRANSLATION FROM THE 56TH GERMAN EDITION BYMARTIN WYNESS, WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RICHARD M. MEYER, PROFESSOR OFGERMAN LITERATURE IN BERLIN UNIVERSITY
Gottfried Keller, the greatest German narrative writer of recent times,was born in a suburb of Zurich on 19th July, 1819. The life of thisremarkable man suggests comparisons with novels of development, such asGoethe taught him to write: from the romantic confusion of youthfuldilettantism he brought himself, by strict self-discipline, to take hisplace in everyday social life. Left, together with his mother andsister, in poverty by a hard-working but unsuccessful father, the childdreamed away the first years of his development, and the youth wasstill a stranger to the world of reality when, with the aid of somefriends in his native place, he went as an art-student to Munich.There, after a promising start, he sank into hopeless lethargy, whichcontinued even after his return home. Prudent helpers then took thehalf painter, half poet, once more in hand, recognizing that hisdeficiency consisted in imperfect education and knowledge of the world.He went to study at Heidelberg (1848-50), and received an importantstimulus from the well-known literary historian Hettner; thence heproceeded to Berlin (1850-55), where Varnhagen von Ense, the admirer ofGoethe and husband of the prophetess Rahel, made him welcome. Here thegerms of his most important works awoke within him. He had already, atan early age, published poems, which showed the influence of therevolutionary Tendenzlyrik; now there appeared the romanticautobiographical novel "Green Henry" (1854-5) which he afterwardsrecast in very characteristic fashion (1879-80). This