The Complete Plays, Lenz and Other Writings

The Complete Plays, Lenz and Other Writings
ISBN: 9780140445862
Publication Date: 1 February 1994

Collected in this volume are powerful dramas and psychological fiction by the nineteenth-century iconoclast now recognized as a major figure of world literature. Also included are selections from Büchner's letters and philosophical writings.

About The Author Born October 17, 1813 in the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, Georg Büchner was educated in a private school and at Darmstadt Gymnasium. His father, a doctor in the service of the Grand Duke, did not approve of Georg's literary endeavors so he encouraged the boy to focus on other, more scientific pursuits. As a young man, Georg studied zoology and comparative anatomy in Strassburg where he first came into contact with a group of politically radical students.

After returning to Hesse to continue his studies at the University of Giessen, Büchner suffered an attack of meningitis. Having been influenced by the radical students with whom he associated in Strassburg, he decided to help found the revolutionary "Society of Human Rights." In 1834, along with political agitator Pastor Weidig, he wrote and distributed an illegal pamphlet entitled "The Hessian Courier" which has since come to be considered one of the most brilliant political brochures in the German language. Büchner was quickly denounced as the author of the pamphlet, but a lack of evidence and his own confident assertion of innocence delayed his arrest and allowed him to return home to Darmstadt.

During a period of five weeks in 1835, Büchner secretly wrote Danton's Death, a tragedy depicting the activist Danton's disillusionment with the French Revolution. In March of that year, he fled to Strassburg to avoid arrest and never returned to Germany or engaged in political activities again.

In 1836, he wrote a romantic comedy entitled Leo...