Three novels are announced by a German authoress, Carolina von Göhren—Ottomar, Victor, and Thora, and Glieder einer Kelte. The authoress (whose real name is Frau von Zöllner) is a lady of noble family, who has married a man of “no family,” and has not died of the mésalliance. She is well known in the best circles of Dresden, and has lately taken to fill her leisure with writing novels, which she does with considerable skill. Her compatriot Hahn-Hahn, by her languid airs of haughty aristocracy, seems to have roused the scorn of Frau von Zöllner, who attacks her with great spirit. The new writer commands the sympathy of English readers by her good, plain common sense, and the moral tendency of her books.
The scientific literature both of Germany and England is about to be enriched by a translation of Oersted's chief work, “The Soul in Nature.” Cotta, of Stuttgard and Tübingen, is to publish the one, and Mr. Bohn the other.
A German translation is announced of the lately deceased Danish poet, Oehlenschlager's Autobiographical Reminiscences. Oehlenschlager has an old reputation in this country as the author of the fine-art drama, “Correggio,” and of a still finer theatrical version of the Arabian Nights' tale, “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” both of which were introduced to the public a quarter of a century ago in Blackwood's Magazine. During his lifetime, he published a portion of his autobiography, which was very interesting and unaffected; and we can predict a fair popularity to the now completed work.
Of German fictions, the one that has made the most noise lately is the long-announced novel by Wolfgang Menzel, the well-known historian, journalist, and critic, entitled Furore: Geschichte eines Mönchs und einer Nonne aus dem dreissigjährigen Kriege (“Story of a Monk and a Nun from the period of the Thirty Years' War”), which the German critics praise as a lively and variegated picture of that period of turmoil and confusion.
Heine's new work, Romanzero, has been prohibited at Berlin, and the copies in the booksellers, shops confiscated. The sale of eight thousand copies before it was prohibited is a practical assurance of its brilliant success. Gay, sarcastic, and poetic, it [pg 428] resembles all his previous works in spirit, though less finished in form. His Faust turns out to be a Ballet, with Mephistopheles metamorphosed into a Danseuse! In the letter which concludes the work there is much interesting matter on the Faust Saga, and its mode of treatment.