Siegfried the Wrestler : the Wilhelmine world of a colportage novel Continually attacked by government officials and educators installment or colportage novels fascinated their underprivileged readers. Melodrama and sensation were essential ingredients. The hurriedly written rambling plots sought to electrify fantasies of women with new turn of the century aspirations. They also fused raw political ideas offering populist and paternalist solutions to societys challenges and tensions. Through the study of one rare surviving colportage novel Peter S. Fisher offers an unusual mental and visual panorama of a nearly vanished Wilhelmine world