BAUER, JULIUS:

By: Isidore Singer, Edgar Mels

Austrian humorist; born at Raab-Sziget, Hungary, Oct. 15, 1853. Bauer was educated at home until 1873, when he went to Vienna to study medicine. Being poor, he wrote for the local comic papers, and, to his surprise, did so well that he forsook medicine for journalism. For some time he lived in quiet obscurity, when one of a series of satirical articles in a Vienna paper, signed "Don Spavento," drew attention to Bauer and enabled him to gain a firm foothold in the literary world. In 1879 he became the dramatic editor of the "Wiener Extrablatt," in which he published among other articles a satire on Jókai's "Der Goldmensch," which induced Director Jauner, of the Theater an der Wien, to engage Bauer as librettist.

In this capacity he wrote jointly with Hugo Wittmann the libretti for Millöcker's "Der Hofnarr"; "Die Sieben Schwaben"; "Der Arme Jonathan," and "Das Sonntagskind"; as well as "Die Wienerstadt in Wort und Bild" (farce); "Zur Hebung des Fremdenverkehrs" (farce); "Im Zeitungsverschleiss." He wrote also a number of topical satires and poems.

S. E. Ms.