| Christian Heinrich Spiess |
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For a time an actor, he was appointed in 1788 controller on the estate of a certain Count Königl at Betzdikau in Bohemia , where he died, almost insane, the result of his weird fancies, on the 17th of August 1799. Spiess, in his ''Ritter-'', ''Räuber-'' and ''Geister-Romane'', as they are called--stories of knights, robbers and ghosts of the "dark" ages--the idea of which he borrowed from Goethe 's ''Götz von Berlichingen'' and Schiller 's ''Räuber'' and ''Geisterseher'', was the founder of the German ''Schauerroman'' (shocker), a style of writing continued, though in a finer vein, by Karl Gottlob Cramer (1758-1817) and by Goethe's brother-in-law, Christian August Vulpius . These stories, though appealing largely to the vulgar taste, made Spiess one of the most widely read authors of his day. The most popular was a ghost story of the 13th Century , ''Das Petermännchen'' (1793) among others were ''Der alte Uberall'' and ''Nirgends'' (1792); ''Die Lowenritter'' (1794), and ''Hans Heiling, vierter and letzter Regent der Erd- Luft- Feuer- und Wasser-Geister'' (1798). Beside numerous comedies, Spiess wrote, anticipating Schiller, a tragedy ''Maria Stuart'' (1784), which was in the same year performed at the court theatre in Vienna . See Karl Gödeke , ''Grundrisz zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung'', v. 506 sqq.; Müller-Fraureuth, ''Die Ritter- and Räuberromane'' (Halle, 1894). |
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