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Georg Ebers
The Story of My Life — Complete
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066247522
Table of Contents
CHAPTER II. MY EARLIEST CHILDHOOD
CHAPTER IV. THE JOURNEY TO HOLLAND TO ATTEND THE GOLDEN WEDDING.
CHAPTER V. LENNESTRASSE.—LENNE.—EARLY IMPRESSIONS.
CHAPTER VI. MY INTRODUCTION TO ART, AND ACQUAINTANCES GREAT AND SMALL IN THE LENNESTRASSE.
CHAPTER VII. WHAT A BERLIN CHILD ENJOYED ON THE SPREE AND AT HIS GRANDMOTHER’S IN DRESDEN.
CHAPTER VIII. THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD BEFORE THE REVOLUTION
CHAPTER IX. THE EIGHTEENTH OF MARCH.
CHAPTER X. AFTER THE NIGHT OF REVOLUTION.
Keilhau! How much is comprised in that one short word!
CHAPTER XII. FRIEDRICH FROEBEL’S IDEAL OF EDUCATION.
CHAPTER XIII. THE FOUNDERS OF THE KEILHAU INSTITUTE, AND A GLIMPSE AT THE HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL.
CHAPTER XV. SUMMER PLEASURES AND RAMBLES
CHAPTER XVI. AUTUMN, WINTER, EASTER AND DEPARTURE
CHAPTER XVII. THE GYMNASIUM AND THE FIRST PERIOD OF UNIVERSITY LIFE.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE TIME OF EFFERVESCENCE, AND MY SCHOOL MATES.
CHAPTER XIX. A ROMANCE WHICH REALLY HAPPENED.
CHAPTER XX. AT THE QUEDLINBURG GYMNASIUM
CHAPTER XXI. AT THE UNIVERSITY.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE HARDEST TIME IN THE SCHOOL OF LIFE.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE APPRENTICESHIP.
CHAPTER XXV. THE SUMMERS OF MY CONVALESCENCE.
CHAPTER XXVI. CONTINUANCE OF CONVALESCENCE AND THE FIRST NOVEL.
INTRODUCTION.
In this volume, which has all the literary charm and deftness of character drawing that distinguish his novels, Dr. Ebers has told the story of his growth from childhood to maturity, when the loss of his health forced the turbulent student to lead a quieter life, and inclination led him to begin his Egyptian studies, which resulted, first of all, in the writing of An Egyptian Princess, then in his travels in the land of the Pharaohs and the discovery of the Ebers Papyrus (the treatise on medicine dating from the second century B.C.), and finally in the series of brilliant historical novels that has borne his name to the corners of the earth and promises to keep it green forever.
This autobiography carries the reader from 1837, the year of Dr. Ebers’s birth in Berlin, to 1863, when An Egyptian Princess was finished. The subsequent events of his life were outwardly calm, as befits the existence of a great scientist and busy romancer, whose fecund fancy was based upon a groundwork of minute historical research.
Dr. Ebers attracted the attention of the learned world by his treatise on Egypt and the Book of Moses, which brought him a professorship at his university, Gottingen, in 1864, the year following the close of this autobiography. His marriage to the daughter of a burgomaster of Riga took place soon afterward. During the long years of their union Mrs. Ebers was his active helpmate, many of the business details relating to his works and their American and English editions being transacted by her.
After his first visit to Egypt, Ebers was called to the University of Leipsic to fill the chair of Egyptology. He went again to Egypt in 1872, and in the course of his excavations at Thebes unearthed the Ebers Papyrus already referred to, which established his name among the leaders of what was then still a new science, whose foundations had been laid by Champollion in 1821.
Ebers continued to occupy his chair at the Leipsic University, but, while fulfilling admirably the many duties of a German professorship, he found time to write several of his novels. Uarda was published in 1876, twelve years after the appearance of An Egyptian Princess, to be followed in quick succession by Homo Sum, The Sisters, The Emperor, and all that long line of brilliant pictures of antiquity. He began his series of tales of the middle ages and the dawn of the modern era in 1881 with The Burgomaster’s Wife. In 1889 the precarious state of his health forced him to resign his chair at the university.
Notwithstanding his sufferings and the obstacles they placed in his path, he continued his wonderful intellectual activity until the end. His last novel, Arachne, was issued but a short time before