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."

颱奧多爾·馮塔納(1819-1898)是德國批判現實主義作傢，齣生於一個藥商傢庭，早年在柏林、來比锡等地藥店裏工作，從1850年起以寫作為職業。1861-1882年發錶的《勃蘭登堡漫遊記》，主要是描寫勃蘭登堡的貴族生活和風土人情。他的作品很多，其中有長短篇小說和自傳。1878年發錶的長篇曆史小說《暴風雨前》是他的批判現實主義道路的開端，後來的《沙赫·封·烏特諾夫》(1883)和《艾菲·布裏斯特》(1895)批判封建貴族；《燕妮·特賴貝爾夫人》(1892)批判資産階級。他特彆憎惡貴族統治階級和資産階級暴發戶，同情不閤理製度下的犧牲者，歌頌來自平民階層的人物的善良行為。