EFFI BRIEST is widely considered to be Theodor Fontane's masterpiece and one of the most famous German realist novels of all time. Thomas Mann once said that if one had to reduce one's library to six novels, EFFI BRIEST would have to be one of them. The novel marks a watershed and climax in the poetic realism of literature and forms a thematic trilogy on marriage from the female point of view along with the more famous Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary. EFFI BRIEST takes its place in stature among these three adultery tragedies of masterpiece preportions.