Theodor Fontane is one of the major Realism writers. In 1819, he was born in Neuruppin, Brandenburg, and became a pharmacist at his fathers request. However, his passion was writing and he composed already poems at the age of ten. He published his first literary works when he was twenty and during the German Unification Wars he worked as a foreign correspondent in London. His most famous works were written after 1876, when he decided to work as a freelance writer. One well-known work is the novel "Effi Briest" which is based on a real event.