Gustav Falke (11 January 1853 – 8 February 1916) was a German writer.
Life
Falke was born in Lübeck to merchant Johann Friedrich Christian Falke and his wife Elisabeth Franziska Hoyer. The historians Johannes and Jacob von Falke were his uncles, and the translator Otto Falke was his cousin.
He worked in a bookstore in Hamburg from 1868, then moved to Essen, Stuttgart, and Hildburghausen. He returned to Hamburg in 1878, where he was educated in music by Emil Krause, to become a piano teacher. In 1888 he married his former piano student Anna Theen. They had two daughters and a son.
Falke started to publish his works in the 1890s and was introduced into the Hamburg literary society around Otto Ernst, Jakob Loewenberg, Prince Emil von Schoenaich-Carolath, and Detlev von Liliencron. Much of his work was impressionistic lyric poetry inspired by Liliencron, Richard Dehmel, and Paul Heyse. He also wrote conservative, "folk" pieces, following Eduard Mörike and Theodor Storm, and children's books in rhyme and prose. With the advent of World War I, he volunteered to write war propaganda as well, for which he was awarded the Prussian Roter Adlerorden. Composers such as Pauline Volkstein set Falke’s texts to music.
Falke died in Hamburg.
