Karl Ernst Bürger (April 11, 1866 – September 3, 1936)[1] was a German classical scholar of the late 19th century, who made significant contributions to the critical study of the Ancient Greek and Roman Novel, thereby helping to establish the field as a major area of study within Classical Philology.
Bürger was born at Seitsch in the former Prussian province of Silesia (German: Schlesien; since 1945 a part of Poland), near the border of Posen.
Among his notable professors in philology were Ernst Maass and Hermann Diels, and in history Elimar Klebs, Hans Droysen, and Ulrich Köhler.
degree, Bürger made a career as a teacher in the grammar schools of Berlin, until 1892, when he was called to serve as the private teacher of Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, the youngest son of Prince Albert of Prussia, regent of The Duchy of Brunswick.
[3] Bürger achieved this by demonstrating the close literary-historical and structural affinity of the two extant Roman novels of Apuleius and Petronius to a certain fragmentary but well-attested Ancient Greek work of prose fiction, the Milesian Tales of Aristides of Miletus (2nd century BCE).