Fontane, Theodor

The German author Theodor Fontane (Henri Théodore Fontane) was born to a Huguenot family in the Brandenburg garrison town of Neuruppin north of Berlin. His father was an apothecary whose gambling habit often forced the family to move, and Theodor's education suffered. He was tutored at home and completed his education in 1832 at the Neuruppin high school. He started to attend the Klödensche Gewerbeschule in Berlin, but left in 1836 to become an apothecary's apprentice. Fontane went on to work in apothecaries in Berlin, Leipzig and in his father's apothecary, and in 1847 he got his certificate, but he did not have the means to buy an apothecary of his own.