3 h 26 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 3 h 26 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does starting over mean when war has broken your life and a son you never knew enters it?
In Into the New Land, Gabriele Reuter follows a war-wounded artist through the slow, painful search for a new life. His loss belongs to a wider world: a German society marked by war and change, where large events press hard on the most private parts of life.
A son he has never known brings questions of duty, guilt and what a family can mean. Alongside the artist's wounds, this unfamiliar bond gives the story its human stakes. Reuter turns toward inner feeling, exploring the pain of starting over rather than promising an easy or sudden change.
What you’ll discover
- An artist after war Follow a wounded artist whose search for a new life carries the weight of loss.
- A son never known Explore the questions of family and duty raised by a son outside his father's experience.
- History close to home See how a society marked by war shapes private lives and family ties.
- The weight of feeling Spend time with fiction that attends closely to inner feeling amid social change.
- No easy fresh start Enter a story that gives the pain of beginning again room to be felt.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you like stories about artists and the price of a gift, family drama in a country house, and people changing under pressure.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A lost arm takes his purpose
- War reaches the solitary painter
- The family he left returns
- His son's drawings reopen the future
- A child cannot owe affection
- Shared art leaves Martha outside
- A failed brushstroke exposes the wound
- Art does not erase human duty
Who’s who
- Franz RolfersA proud, solitary painter who loses his right arm in the war and clings to art as the only thing that gives his life worth.
- Martha LebusThe gentle, practical woman who raised Richard alone and who still loves the man who left her, though she fears losing her son to him.
- Richard LebusRolfers's fourteen-year-old son, a stocky, gifted, fiercely proud boy who wants to hate his father and cannot stop watching him.
- LütjeThe old coachman and gardener at Rolfers's Holstein house, who teaches Richard Low German and the horse, and sees nothing he should not.
- The young CountessA neighbor from the castle who welcomes Rolfers and his young pupil warmly, and whose invitations leave Martha feeling shut out.
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Into the New Land
A painter who lost his right arm in war must decide whether his unknown teenage son can carry his art forward.
Medium level2–5 hours to read2 languages
Learn a language with medium classicsSpanishFrenchGermanItalianJapanesePortugueseEnglishHow we measure levels
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In short
What does a man do when the one thing that gave his life meaning is taken from him in a single moment? A painter lies in a Berlin hospital ward with his right arm gone.
Into the New Land at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 15 min1 h 45 min fast, 2 h 40 min slow
- Length
- 31,700 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A gloomy patient asks only for a private room
The story opens in a war hospital in Berlin, in a ward lined with white iron beds. A nurse warns the young doctor about one patient. She calls him the gloomy one. He barely speaks, and his forehead is always furrowed.
His right arm ends in a bandaged stump. The doctor says the state looks after its defenders and a clever man can learn another trade. Rolfers answers with a look so scornful that the doctor falls silent. He wants a private room. Asked about family, he says he has none. The nurse guesses he is a painter, though he never speaks of himself.
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Cite this edition
Reuter, Gabriele. Into the New Land. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/into-the-new-land.
Reuter, G. (2026). Into the new land. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/into-the-new-land
Reuter, Gabriele. Into the New Land. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/into-the-new-land.
@book{reuter2026into,
author = {Reuter, Gabriele},
title = {Into the New Land},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/into-the-new-land}
}
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What is Into the New Land about?
It tells of the painter Franz Rolfers, who loses his right arm in the First World War and wants to die. A sketchbook shows him a gifted son he never knew, and he builds a new purpose around the boy.
Who are the main characters in Into the New Land?
The main characters are Franz Rolfers, the wounded painter, Martha Lebus, the woman he left long ago, and their teenage son Richard. Lütje, the old coachman, and the countesses of the nearby castle also play parts.
When is Into the New Land set and is it a true story?
It is a novel by Gabriele Reuter, set in the first year of the First World War, mostly in a Berlin hospital and a Holstein village. The people are invented, but the wartime mood is drawn from life.
The author
Gabriele Reuter
1859–1941 · German novelist
Gabriele Reuter was a German writer born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1859. She wrote novels and short stories. Her novel Aus guter Familie was published in 1895. She lived in Germany, including in Munich and Berlin, and later settled in Weimar. She died in Weimar in 1941.
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