Originally published in 1971, this book outlines the period of Germany's belated industrial revolution and suggests why German literature does not, before the 1880s, contribute to the tradition of European realism. It considers the alternatives to realism offered in three genres of drama, poetry and prose fiction.

1. Palms and Odalisques 2. Three Dramatists: Grillparzer, Hebbel and Büchner 3. Heinrich Heine's Contentious Muse 4. Eduard Mörike: Recollection and Inwardness 5. Adalbert Stifter: 'Erhebung without Motion' 6. Gottfried Keller: Realism and Fairy-Tale 7. Wilhelm Raabe: Home and Abroad 8. Theodor Fontane: The Realism of Assessment 9. Fiction and the Immutable Self 10. Friedrich Nietzsche: The Birth of a Myth?