KELLER, GOTTFRIED (1819-189o), German-Swiss poet and novelist, was born at Zurich on July 19, 1819. He was ap prenticed (1835) to a landscape painter, and spent two years (184o-42) in Munich in the study of art. Poverty drove him home again; he then wrote a small volume of Gedichte (1846), which proved his real talent. The cantonal Government gave him a small pension which enabled him to study philosophy at Heidel berg. From 185o to 1855 he lived in Berlin, where he wrote the novel, Der griine Heinrich ; revised ed. 1879-8o), re markable for its delicate autobiographic portraiture and the beau tiful episodes interwoven with the action. This was followed by Die Leute von Seldwyla (1856), studies of Swiss provincial life, including Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe, one of the most pow erful short stories in the German language, and Die drei gerechten Kammacher, almost as great a masterpiece of humorous writing. From 1861 to 1867 he was first secretary to the canton. For a time his creative faculty seemed paralysed by his public duties, but in 1872 appeared Sieben Legenden, and in 1874 a second admirable series of Die Leute von Seldwyla. In his later years appeared Ziiricher Novellen (1878), Das Sinnegedicht, a collec tion of short stories 0880, Gesammelte Gedichte (1883), and a novel, Martin Salander (1886). He died on July 15, 189o, at
Hottingen. Keller's place among German novelists is very high. Few have united such fancy and imagination to such uncompro mising realism, or such tragic earnestness to such abounding humour. As a lyric poet, his genius is no less original; he takes rank with the greatest German poets in the second half of the 19th century.
Keller's Gesammelte Werke were published in To vols. (1889-9o), to which was added another volume, Nachgelassene Schriften und Dichtungen, containing the fragment of a tragedy (1893). In English appeared, G. Keller: A Selection of his Tales translated with a Memoir by Kate Freiligrath-Kroeker (1891). See also F. Baldensperger, G. Keller; sa vie et ses oeuvres (1893) ; A. Frey, Erinnerungen an Gott fried Keller (1893) ; J. Baechtold, Kellers Leben. Seine Briefe und Tagebiicher (3 vols., revised ed. by Ermatinger, 1915) ; A. Koster, G. Keller (19oo; znd ed., 1907) ; Ricarda Huch, Gottfried Keller (1904) ; Mayne, Gottfried Keller (1923) ; and for his work as a painter, H. E. von Berlepsch, Gottfried Keller als Maler (1895). A new edition of Der griine Heinrich in its original form, before Keller changed its tragic ending, was published by Ermatinger in 1913.