Weltgift

Today, I finally died. With this sentence begins the story of Hadrian Hausler, son of an industrialist around 1900. Instead of fulfilling his father's wish and following in his footsteps, he declines the offer to become the new head of "Hausler and Son" and settles for a compulsory share. He turns his back on his family. Together with his servant Saberl, he sets off in a carriage, trying to establish his own existence. "Weltgift" (1901) is the only work in the complete edition of Rosegger that quickly disappeared from libraries shortly after its creation and has only been found in Fraktur until today. Critically addressing the vast divide between social classes, this major novel by the Austrian author is alarmingly close to the pulse of its time and has lost none of its relevance even more than a hundred years later.