In 1919 Thomas Mann hailed Effi Briest (1895) as one of the six most significant novels ever
written. Set in Bismarck's Germany Fontane's luminous tale of a socially suitable but
emotionally disastrous match between the enchanting seventeen-year-old Effi and an austere
workaholic civil servant twice her age is at once touching and unsettling. Fontane's taut
ironic narrative depicts a world where sexuality and the enjoyment of life are stifled by
narrow-mindedness and circumstance. Considered by many to be the pinnacle of the
nineteenth-century German novel Effi Briest is a tale of adultery that ranks with Madame
Bovary and Anna Karenina and brilliantly demonstrates the truth of the author's comment and
women's stories are generally far more interesting.
