In his relatively short life, Karl Immermann was a prolific writer of dramas, fiction, travelogues, memoirs, and poetry. Yet his work suffered from an uneven quality that bore the stamp of his generation, to which he gave the enduring name "Epigonenzeit" (epigonous period). The term designates a mediocre German generation unsuccessfully trying to cope with the overwhelming cultural legacy of the preceding generation, which was marked by the genius of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. It comprises the period following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, a period also referred to as the Restoration. It was a time of profound changes, contradictions, and uncertainties. The quality of Immermann's literary production was also affected by his dogged pursuit of a career as a dramatist; he did not realize until a decade before his death that his strength lay in the kind of prose writing that made use of...