Conversation so far:
when was Georg Brandes's breakthrough?
His famous opening lecture on 3 November 1871.
what was the lecture about?
signalled the beginning of his lifelong struggle to modernize Danish literature.
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
In the middle of these polemics, Brandes began to issue volumes of the most ambitious of his works, Main Currents in the Literature of the Nineteenth Century.

Question: were they successful?
Self-contained rewrite: Were volumes of Main Currents in the Literature of the Nineteenth Century successful?