The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Hegeler, Wilhelm

HEGELER, Wilhelm, popular contemporary German novelist: b. Varel, Oldenburg, 25 Feb. 1870. He studied law at the universities of Munich, Geneva and Berlin, traveled extensively, and returned to Munich in 1895 to settle down to literary work. He moved to Berlin in 1897, to Weimar in 1906, where he has lived ever since, engaged in the production, at first, of naturalistic novels dealing with the life of the population along the river Rhine, later, of humorous satires. His stories were at first characterized by a rather sharp and painful naturalism, but later assumed a convincing and powerful realism. Their popularity in Germany is very great, and Hegeler's books have frequently appeared among the lists of best sellers for certain years (1905, for instance). His more important works include ‘Sonnige Tage’ (novel, Berlin 1898); ‘Ingenieur Horstmann’ (his best novel, Berlin 1900); ‘Das Ærgernis’ (his best satirical novel, Berlin 1907).