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Novels
- "[In the first novel, written in 1875], Horacker, a youth who has escaped from a reformatory, haunts the woods, and rumour falsely attributes all manner of outrageous crimes to him. On the afternoon of the story he accidentally encounters two schoolmasters and is brought by them, starving and exhausted, to the parsonage of the village of Gansewinckel. There, too, is Lottchen Achterhang, an orphan like Horacker, who is deeply attached to him and has made her way on foot, having heard that he is at large and in trouble. The inflated bubble of Horacker{u2019}s alleged crimes bursts, and the story ends with the couple asleep in the parsonage with their troubles assuaged ... [The second novel, Tubby (in German, Stopfkuchen) Schaumann, written in 1888-90 gets its] unusual title [from] a nickname of the principal character Heinrich Schaumann, earned by his addiction to stuffing cake ... At its centre [of the story] is an unsolved murder and its consequences. Schaumann has married the daughter of Farmer Quakatz, who has spent much of his life under the cloud of an accusation and suspicion of murder. Kienbaum, a cattle dealer, was found dead and Quakatz was known to have had an altercation with him not long before. The case was taken up and dropped three times for lack of evidence, but [many] are convinced of Quakatz{u2019}s guilt and make his and his daughter{u2019}s life a misery. [Tubby] ... defends Valentine Quakatz against her persecutors, assists her father, and on one occasion arrives in the nick of time to save them from violence at the hands of drunken farm servants. He marries Valentine and they live together in happiness and harmony ... At the old man{u2019}s funeral [Tubby] finds a clue to the murder of Kienbaum. He follows it up and solves the mystery. The murder was committed on impulse by Störzer, the postman ... But [Tubby] keeps his knowledge to himself ... [until] after Störzer{u2019}s death ... He [reveals the truth] in his own fashion, interminably, circuitously, and yet with his goal always clear in his mind. The real focus of the novel is not the murder of Kienbaum, but the unfolding of the rich and balanced character of Heinrich [Tubby] Schaumann, self-confessed sloth and glutton, yet with an infallible eye for the things which are truly important and a sovereign disregard for those which are not.--cambridgeforecast.wordpress.com."