Emanuel Geibel was one of the most celebrated and popular poets of the nineteenth century. His first collection, Gedichte (Poems, 1840), went into one hundred editions during his lifetime. He won the acclaim of kings, aristocrats, and students; leading scholars of German literature, such as Karl Goedeke, wrote respectful biographies. His reputation, however, did not last far into the twentieth century. Recent histories of German literature, if they mention him at all, characterize his work with one or two pejorative sentences. No attempt has yet been made to assess this extraordinary reception history.

The seventh of eight children of Johannes and Elisabeth Luise Ganslandt Geibel, Franz Emanuel August Geibel was born in Lübeck a few minutes before midnight on 17 October 1815; since 18 October was the anniversary of the decisive victory over Napoleon near Leipzig in 1813, the patriotic Geibel family liked to celebrate both occasions together. Geibel's father was...