author
Herman George Scheffauer
1878–1927
A restless early-20th-century literary figure, this German-American writer moved between San Francisco and Berlin, working as a poet, dramatist, journalist, and translator. His career linked American bohemian circles with European literary life in a way that still feels unusual today.
1 Audiobook
The Masque of the Elements
by Herman George Scheffauer
About the author
Born in San Francisco, Herman George Scheffauer is generally described as a German-American writer, poet, dramatist, journalist, translator, and sometimes architect. Reliable sources agree that he spent his life between American and German cultural worlds, though they differ on whether he was born in 1876 or 1878, so it is safest to say he was born in the late 1870s and died in Berlin in 1927.
Scheffauer was associated with the lively literary scene around San Francisco and is often mentioned alongside figures from the city’s bohemian culture. He later settled in Germany, where he continued to write and translate, building a career that crossed languages and national traditions rather than staying neatly in one place.
That mix of roles helps explain why he remains an intriguing author today. He was not just a novelist or poet in the narrow sense, but a versatile man of letters whose work reflected journalism, criticism, drama, and translation as well as creative writing.