Historians of literature routinely group Elisabeth Langgässer with German religious writers of the first half of the twentieth century who had their roots in expressionism, such as Werner Bergengruen, Rudolf Alexander Schröder, Gertrud von le Fort, and Reinhold Schneider. Langgässer herself rejected this classification. Like Ernst Barlach, she wanted to be seen as a writer whose work took the secular world fully into account. Her chief concern was to appeal to her readers as kindred souls and "co-mystics." Among German women writers she is one of the most distinctive in articulating an encompassing view of the concerns of modern women. National Socialism silenced her during most of the years after 1933: it was only in the short time left to her after World War II that she experienced appreciation by a wide audience.

Hermann Broch was one of the many admirers of her...