Effi Briest is steered into marriage with a man twenty years her senior, and taken to live in a remote Baltic seaport. Isolated and bored, she drifts into an affair, which is quickly ended. Years later the past catches up with Effi, with profound consequences. Fontane's masterpiece, the novel is an acute portrait of Prussian society. I'd barely heard of Theodor Fontane before I read this, but he clearly was an important novelist and I'm delighted to have been introduced to him. This is an great new edition, with a helpfully wide-ranging introduction and notes, and the translation by Mike Mitchell is excellent I never had the sense that I was even reading a translation, which is high praise from someone as fussy as I am. So highly recommended.