Despite his protestations Theodor Mundt has gone into German literary history as a preeminent member of the group known as Junges Deutschland (Young Germany). Although he criticized Heinrich Heine and quarreled with Karl Gutzkow, he was named with them, Ludolph Wienbarg, and Heinrich Laube in the Prussian censorship act of 14 November 1835 directed against the Junges Deutschland movement. On 10 December an act of the German Confederation prohibited the publication or distribution of their works. Mundt acknowledged that he would gladly bear upon his shoulders "die gefährlichen Ideen" (the dangerous political ideas) and social visions of the younger generation of German writers, but he denied belonging to any literary group.

Mundt was a prolific writer; there is virtually no aspect of life in his day which escaped his comment either in fiction or in scholarly works. He was a fine, though uneven, stylist, who contributed to the evolution...