Publisher's Synopsis
A delightful romance of German student life is "Old Heidelberg," by Wilhelm Meyer-Forster. This simple but moving and original work achieved immense popularity in Germany, and was successfully dramatized. Last year an English version, presented by Richard Mansfield, won deserved applause.
"Old Heidelberg" tells the story of a few years in the life of Karl Heinrich, a German hereditary princeling. His training, up to the momentous day when he arrives in Heidelberg, has been royally strict, formal, and monotonous. An orphan, without brother or sister, or young kin of any sort, he has lived an isolated and dreary life at the court of his uncle, whose heir he chances to be. In his brief stay of three months at Heidelberg, for the first time he really lives. His adventures as a member of one of the famous "corps," are told with great freshness and charm. Karl Heinrich, like most young men away from home, soon falls in love. Kathie, a pretty but lowly Austrian girl, wins his heart. The author, in his treatment of the complications which ensue, and the problems which arise, is essentially not hackneyed. Hence the peculiar effectiveness of this very "gemutlich" work.
The translation by Max Chapelle, reads fluently and has preserved the naive and hearty spirit of the original.
-The Inlander, Volume 15 [1904]
