Spielhagen connected himself with Gutzkow's _Europa_ and devoted himself for a time to criticism. Among the essays of this period are _Objectivity in the Novel_, _Dickens_, _Thackeray_, etc. At the suggestion of Kolatschek, an Austrian Forty-eighter, who had returned from America and founded the periodical _Stimmung der Zeit_ in Vienna, Spielhagen wrote a severe criticism of Freytag's historical drama _The Fabians_. This attack upon Freytag was occasioned by the severe criticism of Gutzkow's _Magician of Rome_, published in the _Grenzboten_, edited by Julian Schmidt and Gustav Freytag. It was Spielhagen's demand for fair play as well as his admiration for Gutzkow that drew him into the conflict. The old home in Pomerania had been broken up by the death of his father and the marriage of his sister, and the events of his early life could now be viewed as history. Out of these events and his later experience grew his first great novel, _Problematic Characters_ (1860, Second Part 1861). This novel deals with the conditions in Pomerania in particular, and in Germany in general, before 1848. The title is drawn from Goethe's _Aphorisms in Prose_: "There are problematic characters which are not adapted to any position in life and are not satisfied with any condition in life. Out of this arises that titanic conflict which consumes life without compensation." The hero, Dr. Oswald Stein, is the poet himself in his rôle as family tutor and implacable foe of the institutions of the nobility, "a belated Young German" and an incipient socialist. He falls in love with Melitta von Berkow in her Hermitage, with the impulsive Emilie von Breesen at the ball, and with Helene von Grenwitz, his pupil. Because of the latter he fights a duel with her suitor, Felix, and then goes off with Dr. Braun to begin anew at Grünwald. In the second part of this novel this unfinished story is carried to its tragic and logical conclusion, when Oswald dies a heroic death at the barricades. Although most of the chief characters drawn in the novel are types, they are modeled after prototypes in real life. Oswald, the revolutionist with a suggestion of the Byronic, echoes the poet in his early career. Dr. Braun (Franz), the man of will, is modeled on the poet's young friend Bernhard, and Oldenburg, the titanic Faust nature, is taken from his friend Adalbert of the Gymnasium days at Stralsund. Albert Timm was his boon companion at Greifswald, and Professor Berger is a composite of Professor Barthold, the historian, and Professor M----, who later became insane. In the years 1860-62 Spielhagen was editor of the literary supplement of the _Zeitung für Norddeutschland_, doing valuable service as a literary journalist. In this position he had opportunity to prepare himself for the wider activities as editor of the _Deutsche Wochenschrift_ and later (1878-84) of Westermann's _Monatshefte_. After 1862 he was identified with the surging life of Berlin.