Editing Jeremias Gotthelf (section)

==Writings==
Bitzius started writing late in life.  His first work, the ''Der Bauernspiegel, oder die Lebensgeschichte des Jeremias Gotthelf'', appeared in 1837. It purported to be the life of Jeremias Gotthelf, narrated by himself, and this name was later adopted by the author as his pen name. It sketches the development of a poor country orphan boy, but is not an autobiography. It is a living picture of Bernese (or, strictly speaking, Emmental) village life, true to nature, and not attempting to gloss over its defects and failings. It is written (like the rest of his works) in German, but contains expressions from the Bernese dialect of the Emmental, though Bitzius was not (like [[Berthold Auerbach|Auerbach]]) a peasant by birth, but belonged to the educated classes, so that he reproduces what he had seen and learnt, and not what he had himself personally experienced. The book was a great success, as it was a picture of real life, and not of fancifully beribboned eighteenth-century villagers.{{sfn|Coolidge|1911}} Henceforth Bitzius was a prolific writer, and in the last 18 years of his life became one of the important novelists not only of Switzerland but of the German language in general.

[[Image:Picswiss FR-14-56.jpg|thumb|Commemorative plaque at his birth house in [[Murten]]/Morat]]
His best-known work is without doubt the short novel ''[[The Black Spider]]'' (''Die schwarze Spinne''), a semi-allegorical tale of the plague in form of the titular monster that devastates a Swiss valley community; first as a result of a pact with the devil born out of need and a second time due to the moral decay that releases the monster from its prison again.

Among his later tales are the ''Leiden und Freuden eines Schulmeisters'' (1838–1839), ''Uli der Knecht'' (The story of a poor peasant laborer who develops into the owner of a prosperous farm; 1841), with its continuation, ''Uli der Pächter'' (1849), ''Anne-Bäbi Jowäger'' (1843–1844), ''Käthi, die Großmutter'' (1846), ''Die Käserei in der Vehfreude'' (1850), and the ''Erlebnisse eines Schuldenbauers'' (1853). He also published several volumes of shorter tales.{{sfn|Coolidge|1911}}

His works were issued in 24 volumes at Berlin, between 1856 and 1861, while 10 volumes, giving the original text of each story, were issued at Bern between 1898 and 1900.{{sfn|Coolidge|1911}}