Johann Timotheus Hermes, who also wrote under the anagrammatic pseudonyms Heinrich Meister and T. S. Jemehr, established his place in literary history with Sophiens Reise von Memel nach Sachsen (Sophie's Trip from Memel to Saxony, 1769-1773), the first novel of German family life as well as the first German psychological novel. Christoph Martin Wieland praised it as a work unique in its concern with problems of human happiness. Swollen to four thousand pages by its third edition in 1778, Sophiens Reise von Memel nach Sachsen was one of the most widely read novels of the eighteenth century and quickly became a "Hausbuch" (a work considered an essential addition to home libraries) among the German bourgeoisie. Its six volumes did not usher the reader into a world of fantasy and high adventure among aristocrats but accurately portrayed conditions in Germany of that day. No other novel by Hermes approached the...