SOURCE: Waidson, H. M. “Jeremias Gotthelf, the Swiss Novelist.” German Life and Letters 3, no. 2 (1949-50): 92-106.

In the following essay, Waidson provides an overview of Gotthelf's life and works.

In the history of German-Swiss literature the name of Jeremias Gotthelf is now ranked as second only to Gottfried Keller's. For, after achieving some reputation during his lifetime, Gotthelf was forgotten in the second half of the nineteenth century, apart from occasional admirers such as Ruskin and Strindberg. Within the last twenty years or so his work has been taken up again by serious critics, and has also become known and liked in many ordinary homes. The present acceptance of Gotthelf as a major classic in Switzerland has been furthered largely by the labours of the editors of the critical edition of the Sämtliche Werke (from 1911 onwards). In recent years the Swiss have tended to emphasize the independence...