STORM, THEODOR ( 1817-88). A German poet and novelist, one of the great masters of that peculiarly German creation, the short story of character and sentiment. He was born at Husum, Schleswig, on September 14, 1817, studied jurisprudence at Kiel and Berlin, and, returning to Kiel in 1839, became intimate with the brothers Theodor and Tycho Mommsen, poetry being the bond of union, especially their mutual admiration for the Swabian poet MOrike. The result was the publication of the Lieder buck drier Preunde (1843), now a great rarity, which contained Storm's first essays in poetry. For ten years be practiced law in his native town and returned to it as Landvogt. in 1864, having entered the Prussian civil service in 1S53, and occupied judicial offices at Potsdam and Ileili genstadt, near Gfittingen. In 1880 he retired and settled at Hademarsehen, in Holstein, where he died on .July 4, 18S8.
Storm began his literary work at Husum by collecting the popular sagas and stories of Schleswig-Holstein, then assisted Biernatzki in editing his Volksbuch, in which, besides some exquisite lyrics, his first three important stories, Martha 'and ihrc Uhr (1843), Inn Sanle (1849), and /ininc»see (1850), saw the light. The last named novelette, the author's most popular and perhaps also his most characteristic work, was the crowning achievement of his first period; it is the best specimen of that retrospective type of story with which Storm's name is most in timately associated, and deservedly occupies a place in the front rank of the short stories of any land or age. Through various translations it has become familiar also to English readers. Of about a dozen stories written during the eleven years of absence from his native soil, Int Sonnensehcin (1854) and Angelica (1855) are sketches of by-gone days, tinged with the elegiac melancholy which forms the key-note of most of the author's stories; Int Schloss (1861•) and Von jenseits dcs Meet-es (1804) boast of happy end ings, and Auf der Unicersitile (1802) is the most ambitious story of this period, in which scenes from Storm's own student life are charmingly interwoven. Die Regcntrude (1864) is the best
of several delicious fairy-tales. With Storm's return to Husain in 1864 his work enters au essentially new phase, in which the passive retrospective novel gives place to a more active and dramatic form of romance. On the one band is here to be considered a series of chronicle novels, written in an archaic style, comprising Der Spiegel des Cyprianus (1865), a romantic tale of the Thirty Years' War, Aquis submersus (1876), Remit(' (1878), Zur Chronik von Gries huus (1884). and Kin Pest auf traderslevhiens (1S85) ; on the other hand some artist-novels, such as Ein stiller Musikant (1874), and Psyche (1875). On psychological lines are Viola tri color (1873), Carsten Curator (1878). John Mem (1885). Bin Dekenntnis and Der Sehimmelreitcr (1888). Nor should the delightful children's story Pole Poppenspiiler (1874) he forgotten. Consult Sehittze, Theodor Storni. Rein Lchen mind seine Dichtung (Berlin, 1887) : W'ehl. Theodor Storm, curt Bild seines Lebens mind Sehaffens (Altona, 1S8S) ; Schmidt, Charakteristiken, 1. (Berlin, 1886) ; Stern, Studien rut' Litteratur der Gegen wart (Dresden, 1S95) ; Robertson, in The Gentle man's Magazine (London, 1895) ; and Hemet Theodor Atorm ads ne,rddeutseher Diehter (Bet lin, 1897).