Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was born in Lemberg, Austrian Galicia, on
January 27, 1836. He studied jurisprudence at Prague and Graz, and in
1857 became a teacher at the latter university. He published several
historical works, but soon gave up his academic career to devote
himself wholly to literature. For a number of years he edited the
international review, _Auf der Hohe_, at Leipzig, but later removed to
Paris, for he was always strongly Francophile. His last years he spent
at Lindheim in Hesse, Germany, where he died on March 9, 1895. In 1873
he married Aurora von Rumelin, who wrote a number of novels under the
pseudonym of Wanda von Dunajew, which it is interesting to note is the
name of the heroine of _Venus in Furs_. Her sensational memoirs which
have been the cause of considerable controversy were published in 1906.

During his career as writer an endless number of works poured from
Sacher-Masoch's pen. Many of these were works of ephemeral journalism,
and some of them unfortunately pure sensationalism, for economic
necessity forced him to turn his pen to unworthy ends.

There is, however, a residue among his works which has a distinct
literary and even greater psychological value. His principal literary
ambition was never completely fulfilled. It was a somewhat
programmatic plan to give a picture of contemporary life in all its
various aspects and interrelations under the general title of the
_Heritage of Cain_. This idea was probably derived from Balzac's
_Comedie Humaine_. The whole was to be divided into six subdivisions
with the general titles _Love, Property, Money, The State, War,_ and
_Death_. Each of these divisions in its turn consisted of six novels,
of which the last was intended to summarize the author's conclusions
and to present his solution for the problems set in the others.