In 1866-1870 there appeared in Berlin a series of novels entitled
"Biarritz--Rome" purporting to have been written by "Sir John Retcliffe,"
the pseudonym of Herman Goedsche, a German novelist with an unsavory
past. To conceal his identity and to convey the impression that the
antisemitism with which his writings abounded emanated from English
sources, he selected "Sir John Retcliffe" as his pen-name.
According to _Meyer's Konversations Lexikon_ (Sixth edition, 1904,
Volume VIII, page 77), Herman Goedsche was born in February, 1815, in
Trachenberg, Silesia, and died on November 8, 1878, at Warmbrunn. He was
employed in the postal service, but as he was implicated in the Waldeck
forgery case, he left the service in 1849, and devoted himself to
literary work. Under the name of "Armin" he published a number of works
of fiction, but he was best known under the name of "Sir John
Retcliffe," having published a series of sensational novels describing
the Crimean war, "Sebastopol," "Rena-Sahib," "Villafranca," "Puebla,"
"Biarritz," in 1866. A new edition of these works appeared in Berlin in
1903-4.
_Brockhaus' Konversations Lexikon_ (supplement volume XVII, 1904) refers
to Goedsche, the novelist, known under the name of "Sir John Retcliffe"
(formerly "Armin"), as having played an infamous role in the Waldeck
forgery case. He was compelled to leave the postal service, and later
became a member of the staff of the _Preussische Kreutz Zeitung_.
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