SPIELHAGEN, spenit-gon, FRIEDRICH (1829—). A German novelist, born at Magde burg, and educated at Berlin, Bonn, and Greifs wald. Ile taught for a while at Leipzig, and in 1859 became editor of the Zeitung far Nord dentsehland, in Hanover. Thence he moved in 1802 to Berlin, and edited (1878-84) Wester mann's Illustrirte Monatsehefte. Spielhagen be gan novel-writing with Problematisehe Naturen (1S60), and then for a while dealt with social problems, arising from the irrepressible conflict between the stolid landed nobility and the intel ligence of the nation. In several books (Burch Naeht zunt Licht, 1861; Die von Hohcnstein, 1863; in Reih and Glied, 1866; hammer• and emboss, 1869) he treated the subject with an aggressive optimism that won him a popularity which he afterwards maintained by sensational novels of a lower type. Of these Stu-rnyfut (1877), Der acne Pharao (1899), and Freige Loren( 1900 ) are sufficient exemplars. Excellent are
his critical Beiteage zur Theor•ie nod Technik des Romans (1883). His own ideal for the novel is to present an artistically composed picture of the times, and for this he makes constant hardly veiled allusions to persons of contemporary prominence, so that his novels lose with time somelhing of their significance and actuality. As a translator Spielhagen rendered into German Curtis's Howadj-i, Emerson's English Traits, a selection of American poems (1S59; 2d ed. 1865), and Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici. He also trans lated from the French minor works of Miehelet, L'amour•, La femme, La rncr•. His collected novels appeared in 22 vols. in 1S95. Consult his autobiographical Finder and Erfinder (1890), and Karpeles, Friedrich Spielhagen (Leipzig, 1889).