In his determination to gain freedom and justice for the common people, Johann Gottfried Seume never ceased to oppose the reactionary political tendencies of his day. Shortly before his death, he acknowledged that his thinking was not in harmony with his age: "Meine Ideen sind nicht von heute und leider nicht für heute" (My ideas are not those of today and, unfortunately, are not for today). He was an outspoken late Enlightener living in the period of German Romanticism, a time that seemed intent on destroying the progress made by the earlier Rationalists and the French Revolution. An observant wayfarer in Europe and America, Seume added new dimensions to the travel literature which was then popular with his vivid portrayals of depressing social conditions in Germany and abroad. He waged an unremitting crusade against the privileges and abuses of the nobility which, he believed, contributed greatly...