Editing Gustav Meyrink (section)

==Fame==

In 1915 the first and most famous of Meyrink's novels, ''The Golem'', was published, though its drafts may be traced back to 1908. The novel is based on the Jewish legend about a rabbi who made a living being known as a [[golem]] (גולם) out of [[clay]] and animated it with a Kabbalistic spell, although these legends have little to do with the story's plotline. The main character is Athanasius Pernath, a contemporary [[lapidary]] from Prague. It is left to the reader to decide whether Pernath is simply writing down his hallucinations or gradually becoming a real golem. Frenschkowski describes ''the Golem'' as both "a deep-footed initiatory tale and an
[[urban fantasy]]".<ref name="mf" /> The novel was a great commercial success. In 1916 one more compilation of short stories, ''Bats'', and soon a second novel, ''[[The Green Face]]'', was published. The next year his third novel, ''Walpurgis Night'', was written. The success of these works caused Meyrink to be ranked as one of the three main German-language supernatural fiction authors (along with [[Hanns Heinz Ewers]] and [[Karl Hans Strobl]]).<ref>{{ cite encyclopedia | author = Bloch, R. N. | title = German Literature,(supernatural) | editor1-first = S. T. | editor1-last = Joshi | editor2-first =  S. R. | editor2-last = Dziemianowicz | encyclopedia = Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopedia | location = Westport, CT | publisher =  Greenwood Press | year = 2005 | isbn = 0-313-32777-7 | pages = 458–461 }}</ref>

Meyrink was opposed to World War I (then called the Great War), which caused him to be denounced by German nationalists; the German
"[[Völkisch movement|Völkisch]]" journalist Albert Zimmermann (1873-1933) described Meyrink as "one of the cleverest and most dangerous opponents of the German nationalist ideal. He will influence&nbsp;&ndash; and corrupt&nbsp;&ndash; thousands upon thousands, just as [[Heinrich Heine|Heine]] did".<ref name="dgd">{{cite book | author = Daviau, D. G. | title = Major Figures of Austrian Literature: The Interwar Years 1918–1938 | year = 1996 | location = Riverside, CA | publisher = Ariadne Press | isbn = 978-0-929497-60-0 | page = [https://archive.org/details/majorfiguresofau00davi/page/284 284] | url = https://archive.org/details/majorfiguresofau00davi/page/284 }}</ref><ref name="ml">{{ cite encyclopedia | author = Lube, Manfred| title = Gustav Meyrink als Literat in Prag, Wien und Munchen. | editor= Zondergeld, Rein A. | encyclopedia = Phaïcon: Almanach der phantastischen Literatur | location = Frankfurt-am-Main | publisher= Suhrkamp | year = 1978 | pages = 70–82 }}</ref> In 1916 ''Des deutschen Spießers Wunderhorn'' was banned in Austria.<ref name="dgd" />

By 1920 Meyrink's financial affairs improved so that he bought a [[villa]] in [[Starnberg]]. The villa became known as "The House at the Last Lantern" after the name of the house from ''[[The Golem (Meyrink)|The Golem]]''. There he and his family lived for the next eight years and two more works – ''The White Dominican'' and Meyrink's longest novel ''[[The Angel of the West Window]]'' – were written.<ref name="ml" />

In 1927 Meyrink formally converted to [[Mahayana Buddhism]].<ref name="mf" />