ABSTRACT
The most influential of William Meinhold’s teachers at university was Ludwig Theobul Kosegarten. Appointed to the Chair of History by the occupying French authorities in 1808, he became Dean of the Philosophical Faculty and University Librarian, and twice acted as Vice-Chancellor. If one is looking to place Meinhold in relation to the ‘English’ literature of his lifetime, and indeed to uncover his literary predecessors, who are surely to be found in English rather than German literature. Introducing the most recent reprint of The Amber Witch, E. F. Bleiler noted that the work of James Hogg stands even closer to Meinhold — James Hogg’s Confession of a Justified Sinner bears marked resemblances to Meinhold’s novel. English reviewers of The Amber Witch compared it not with Scott, but with the work of Defoe and Goldsmith, praising in particular ‘its apparent genuineness, the singular truth and reality of the whole detail, the absolute life-like nature of every circumstance, of every action and word.
