WILLIBALD

ALEXIS  , the pseudonym of GEORG WILHELM HEINRICH HARING (1798-1871), German historical novelist . He was born on the 29th of June 1798 at Breslau, where his father, who came of a French refugee family, named Hareng, held a high position in the war department . He attended the Werdersche Gymnasium in Berlin, and then, serving as a volunteer in the campaign of 1815, took part in the siege of the Ardenne fortresses . On his return he studied law at the universities of Berlin and Breslau and entered the legal profession, but he soon abandoned this career and devoted himself to literature . Settling in Berlin he edited, 1827-1835, the Berliner Konversationsblatt, in which for the first two years he was assisted by Friedrich Christoph Forster (1791–1868) ; and in 1828 was created a doctor of philosophy by the university of Halle . In 1852 he retired to Arnstadt in Thuringia, where after many years of broken health he died on the 16th of December 1871 . Haring made his name first known as a writer by an idyll in hexameters, Die Treibjagd (182o), and several short stories in which the influence of Tieck is observable; but his literary reputation was first established by the historical romance Walladmor (1823), which, published. as being " freely translated from the English of Sir Walter Scott, with a preface by Willibald Alexis," so closely imitated the style of the famous Scotsman as really to deceive even Scott's admirers . The work became immediately popular and was translated into several languages, including English . It was followed by Schloss Avalon (1827), with regard to which the author adopted the same tactics and with equal success . These historical novels, however, were of considerable literary merit, and would doubtless have achieved popularity even without the borrowed plumage . Soon after-wards Haring published a number of successful short stories (Gesammelte Novellen, 4 vols., 1830-1831), some books of travel, and in the novels Das Haus Dusterweg (1835) and Zwolf Ndchte (1838) showed for a while a leaning towards the " Young German " school . In Cabanis (1832), however, a story of the time of Frederick the Great, he entered the field of patriotic-historical romance, in which he so far excelled as to have earned the name of " der Markische Walter Scott " (Walter Scott of the Mark) .

From 1840 onwards he published at short intervals a

series of romances, each dealing with some epoch in the history of Brandenburg . Among them may be especially noted Der Roland von Berlin (1840), Der falsche Woldemar (1842), Die Hosea des Herrn von Bredow (1846-1848), Ruhe ist die erste Bib-gee pflick' (1852), Isegrimm (1854) and Dorothe (1856) . In all these the author shows himself as a keen observer of men and things; the characters, situations and natural surroundings are excellently delineated, and the patriotic feeling which pervades them is not overdone . Haring also made a name for himself in the field of criminology by commencing in 1842, in conjunction with the publicist, Julius Eduard Hitzig (1780-1849), the publication of Der neue Pitaval (continued by A . Vollert, 36 vols., Leipzig, 1842-1865; new edition, 24 vols., Leipzig, 1866-1891), a collection of criminal anecdotes culled from all nations and all times . This publication attained great popularity, and is to-day of psychological interest and value . His Gesammelte Werke were published in 20 volumes (Berlin, 1874) ; the Vaierlandische Ramane separately in 8 volumes (Berlin, 1881, 1884), and, since the expiry of the copyright in 1901, in many cheap reprints . Cp . W . Alexis' Erinneiungen, edited by M . Ewert (1900), and essays by Julian Schmidt (Neue Bilder aus dem geistigen Leben unsrer Zeit, 1873), G . Freytag (Werke, vols .

16 and 23), A . Stern (Zur Literatur der Gegenwart, 1880) and T .

Fontane (in Bayreuther Blotter, vi., 1883) .