Book description
'I loathe what I did, but what I loathe even more is your virtue.'
Seventeen-year-old Effi Briest is steered by her parents into marriage with an ambitious bureaucrat, twenty years her senior. He takes her from her home to a remote provincial town on the Baltic coast of Prussia where…
Why read it?
1 author picked Effi Briest as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I first read this book more than fifty years ago, before I began to teach and write about German history for a living. I knew the great nineteenth-century novels of adultery, like Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina, but didn’t think there was a German counterpart worth mentioning in the same breath. But there is, and this is it!
I love the psychological insight Fontane brings to portraying his characters, especially the youthful and headstrong title character, Effi, and the sharply etched social relations and stifling moral codes of the time.
Another incidental pleasure of the book, for me, is…
From David's list on German history for people who love to read novels.
If you love Effi Briest...
These Blue Mountains
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Want books like Effi Briest?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 26 books like Effi Briest.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,366
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like Effi Briest, you might also like...
Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS
When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…
A Forgivable Indecision
In 1913, a 15-year-old pregnant girl was found dead of apparent suicide. Dr. James Wilson, a new graduate and the first doctor ever to start a practice in this rural town, feels guilty over her death because of his delayed intervention.
He knows Bessie was raped by one of her…
