Ludwig Börne wrote no novels or plays and was rather more a critic and journalist than poet. Yet his influence on writers of his generation and his unshakable belief that a writer's duty is to attempt to influence history and to ameliorate social injustice have secured him a prominent place in the history of German literature of the Restoration period. Börne's liberal views in a time of reaction brought him into frequent conflict with the authorities; he therefore spent a large part of his life in Paris, which for him was the center of the civilized world. In many respects his life and outlook resemble that of his better-known contemporary and sometime friend, Heinrich Heine, with whom he shared the burdens and indignities of discrimination against Jews.

Börne was born Juda Löw Baruch in Frankfurt am Main on 6 May 1786 (as...