Gustav Freytag

This 1924 second edition of Gustav Freytag's Aus Dem Staat Friedrichs des Grossen was edited by Karl Breul of Cambridge University. The original edition, published in 1877, was compiled by Wilhelm Wagner. Breul, whilst preserving the majority of Wagner's work, has edited and updated the text's notes, as well as appending a number of poems on Frederick the Great to Freytag's text. Gustav Freytag was a scholar of German antiquity, early German literature and the origins of German drama. He was also a journalist, biographer and historian with a fervent political mind. His Aus Dem Staat Friedrichs des Grossen is a 'Picture of the German Past', a text where an individual's thoughts and motivations are imagined and presented within a historical framework. Freytag's text thus acts as an invaluable introduction to the life and characteristics of Frederick the Great and will appeal to students of German history and literature alike.