Meïr Aron Goldschmidt secured his place in the literary history of Denmark as the first author to address the problem of being Jewish in nineteenth-century Danish society. His general literary contribution was even greater. In several novels and short stories with myriad settings, Goldschmidt united psychological realism with an idealistic worldview; even his most realistic depictions assume a metaphysical perspective. As he once commented to Georg Brandes while they were viewing an exhibition of Dutch portrait paintings, "Hos mig er der altid noget bagved" (With me, there is always something deeper).

Goldschmidt's central problem, which he faced throughout his life, was his struggle to belong, a search that started in his youth and was characterized by several painful separations. He was born Meyer Aron Goldschmidt on 26 October 1819 in the market town of Vordingborg on the island of Sjælland. He was the firstborn son of...