Die Akten des Vogelsangs

Akten des Vogelsangs, Die, a novel by W. Raabe, written in 1893-5 and published in 1895. A retrospective ‘frame’ novel (see Rahmen), it begins with the receipt by the civil servant Karl Krumhardt of the news of the death of his boyhood friend, Velten Andres. He learns from Velten's former sweetheart Helene Trotzendorf (the name is symbolical of her wilful, obstinate character) the manner of his friend's life and death. Velten, having failed to win the woman he loved, who married a wealthy American speculator, has squandered his great intellectual gifts. Years later he was succoured in his last illness in Berlin by Helene, returned from America. The ‘Vogelsang’ is the once rural suburb of the small city in which Velten, Helene, and Karl Krumhardt grew up.