1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hopfen, Hans von

HOPFEN, HANS VON (1835–1904), German poet and novelist, was born on the 3rd of January 1835, at Munich. He studied law, and in 1858, having shown marked poetical promise, he was received into the circle of young poets whom King Maximilian II. had gathered round him, and thereafter devoted himself to literature. In 1862 he made his debut as an author, with Lieder und Balladen, which were published in the Münchener Dichterbuch, edited by E. Geibel. After travelling in Italy (1862), France (1863) and Austria (1864), he was appointed, in 1865, general secretary of the “Schillerstiftung,” and in this capacity settled at Vienna. The following year, however, he removed to Berlin, in a suburb of which, Lichterfelde, he died on the 19th of November 1904. Of Hopfen’s lyric poems, Gedichte (4th ed., Berlin, 1883), many are of considerable talent and originality; but it is as a novelist that he is best known. The novels Peregretta (1864); Verdorben zu Paris (1868, new ed. 1892); Arge Sitten (1869); Der graue Freund (1874, 2nd ed., 1876); and Verfehlte Liebe (1876, 2nd ed., 1879) are attractive, while of his shorter stories Tiroler Geschichten (1884–1885) command most favour.

An autobiographical sketch of Hopfen is contained in K. E. Franzos, Geschichte des Erstlingswerkes (1904).