October 4, 1797

Albert Bitzius (October 4, 1797 to October 22, 1854) was the pastor of Lützelflüh, which is in the canton of Bern. His father had been a pastor, and his son would also adopt that occupation. Under the pseudonym of Jeremias Gotthelf, Bitzius wrote very popular stories and novels. His close observation of peasant life is praised. One of his stories is translated as"The Black Spider" and one of those who liked this story as a work of art was Thomas Mann. Mann maintained this story illuminated the later rise of Nazism.

Gotthelf is described by one of his earliest biographers, Carl Manuel, (Jeremias Gotthelf Sein Leben und seine Schriftten, 1857) in this way:

[His home was] so pleasant, stimulating and fruitful for the contented and self-sufficing mind. Flowers especially received his care and attention; he took great interest in the culture of new flowers and plants. Animals too he loved very much. He had a favorite cat and fed his fish and also his hens daily himself.. Everything was always in the best order; the management of barns and fields left nothing to be desired.

(I hope that description is of our Bitzius-- Google translate can be challenging occasionally.)

Certainly the cat is a trope in Gotthelf's stories. One, translated by John Ruskin and Julia Firth, is Ulric, the Farm Servant: A Story of the Bernese Lowland  (1888),  features a pretty girl who sings a song with these lines:

Our cat and the parson's cat
Have bitten one another.

Here is an assessment of Gotthelf's The Black Spider by an English critic, Piers Paul Read, (The Times):

What distinguishes ...[his stories] from, say, the horror stories of Gotthelf’s contemporary, Edgar Allan Poe, is that Gotthelf firmly believed in the reality of the demon he created…. Gotthelf’s talent is to make his horror credible by the simplicity of his style and the acuteness of his psychological perception, particularly of the herd instinct among the villagers. His story is a homily, showing how the everyday moral weaknesses of men and women give an opening to the spirit of evil. Christine’s sin is not just in flirting with the Devil, but in thinking that she knows best.

I cannot really evaluate Gotthelf, but what jumps out is that women cause a lot of trouble. Now that tired old theme cannot be why this Swiss author is held in such high regard. But I am not sure, across the centuries and a foreign language, what is the reason.