Jakob Wassermann
(born March 10, 1873, Fürth, Bavaria — died Jan. 1, 1934, Altaussee, Austria) German novelist. After an unsettled youth he achieved success with such works as
Die Juden von Zirndorf (1897),
Caspar Hauser (1908), and
Christian Wahnschaffe (1919). His popularity was greatest in the 1920s and '30s, when he wrote
The Maurizius Case (1928), treating the theme of justice with the carefully plotted suspense of a detective story, and extended the tale of a post-World War I youth into a trilogy with
Etzel Andergast (1931) and
Kerkhoven's Third Existence (1934). He is frequently compared to
Fyodor Dostoyevsky in both his moral fervour and his sensationalizing tendency.
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