Hans von Hopfen

Hans von Hopfen (January 3, 1835 – November 19, 1904) was a German poet and novelist.

Hopfen was born in Munich. He studied law, and in 1853, having shown marked poetical promise, he was received into the circle of young poets whom King Maximilian II had gathered round him, and thereafter devoted himself to literature. In 1862 he made his début as an author, with "Lieder und Balladen", which were published in the "Münchener Dichterbuch", edited by Emanuel Geibel.

After travelling in Italy (1862), France (1863) and Austria (1864), he was appointed, in 1865, general secretary of the "Schillerstiftung", and in this capacity settled at Vienna. The following year, however, he removed to Berlin, in a suburb of which, Lichterfelde, he died on November 19, 1904.

Of Hopfen's lyric poems, "Gedichte" (4th ed., Berlin, 1883), many are of considerable talent and originality; but it is as a novelist that he is best known. The novels "Peregre/ta" (1864); "Verdorben zu Paris" (1868, new ed. 1892); "Arge Si/ten" (1869); "Der graue Freund" (1874, 2nd ed., 1876); and "Verfehite Liebe" (1876, 2nd ed., 1879) are attractive, while of his shorter stories "Tiroler Geschichten" (1884–1885) command most favour.

An autobiographical sketch of Hopfen is contained in KE Franzos', "Geschichte des Erstlingswerkes" (1904).----