Kurnberger, Ferdinand

Kürnberger, Ferdinand 

Born July 3, 1821, in Vienna; died Oct. 14, 1879, in Munich. Austrian writer and journalist.

Kürnberger graduated from the University of Vienna; he participated in the revolutionary events in Vienna in 1848 and in the Dresden uprising in 1849. His bitingly satirical articles spoke out against the Hapsburg monarchy and the Catholic Church. His novel He Tired of America (1855) critically depicted American and European capitalistic reality. The novels about the family and everyday life, Domestic Tyrant (1876) and Castle of Crimes (vols. 1–2, 1876; published 1904), described the life of Tirolian peasants and the Italian aristocracy in the mid-19th century. In the collection The Hearty Affairs of Literature (1877), Kürnberger characterized outstanding writers, including I. S. Turgenev.

WORKS

Gesammelte Werke, vols. 1, 2,4, and 5. Munich-Vienna, 1910–14. (Publication was not completed.)
Literarische Herzenssachen. Vienna [1959].
Spiegelungen. Graz-Vienna [1960].

REFERENCE

Schmidt, A. Dichtung und Dichter Österreichs im 19 und 20 Jahrhundert, vol. 1. Salzburg-Stuttgart, 1964.