Berthold Auerbach

Another early publication was entitled Das Judentum und die neueste Litteratur (Judaism and Recent Literature; 1836), and was to be followed by a series of novels taken from Jewish history.

That year he published Schwarzwälder Dorfgeschichten ("Black Forest Village Stories"; 1843) which was his first great success, widely translated, and expressing with a sympathetic realism the memories and scenes of youth.

It opens with Gellert and the rustic woodcutter Christopher reflecting on how their work takes a toll on their painfully aging bodies, pondering what alternative career might have been more fulfilling.

The lines "Accept God's gifts with resignation, These words inspire Christopher to donate the load of wood he intended to sell at the marketplace in Leipzig to Gellert, when his wife tells him the professor lives there in penury.

In his later books, of which Auf der Höhe (On the Heights;[2] 1865) is perhaps the most characteristic, and certainly the most famous, he revealed an unrivaled insight into the soul of the southern German country folk, and especially of the peasants of the Black Forest and the Bavarian Alps.