<DIV>In 1919 Thomas Mann hailed <b>Effi Briest</b> (1895) as one of "the six most significant novels ever written." Set in Bismarck's Germany, Fontane's luminous tale of a socially suitable but emotionally disastrous match between the enchanting seventeen-year-old Effi and an austere, workaholic civil servant twice her age, is at once touching and unsettling. Fontane's taut, ironic narrative depicts a world where sexuality and the enjoyment of life are stifled by narrow-mindedness and circumstance. Considered by many to be the pinnacle of the nineteenth-century German novel, <b>Effi Briest</b> is a tale of adultery that ranks with <b>Madame Bovary</b> and <b>Anna Karenina</b> and brilliantly demonstrates the truth of the author's comment and "women's stories are generally far more interesting."</DIV>