ABSTRACT
The second and longest of four articles on Heine that George Eliot wrote in 1855-1856, 'German Wit' is an expansion of her brief review of the Reisebilder in the Leader, I September 1855. 1 Her interest in Heine apparently dates from her first trip to Germany with Lewes in 1854. During their winter in Berlin, when they were in touch with a circle of German writers and artists, including Heine's sympathetic friend Varnhagen von Ense, she had many opportunities to learn of Heine's life and work. The publication of Heine's Geständnisse in 1854, which George Eliot read during this time, would have provided a special occasion for talk about Heine among her Berlin acquaintances, and a few of the biographical details included in her article are apparently recollections of the gossip she then heard about him.
