Anzengruber, Ludwig [key], 1839–89, Austrian writer. An actor and a clerk in the imperial police, Anzengruber had little success as a writer until the production (1870) of his anticlerical play Der Pfarrer von Kirchfeld [the parish priest of Kirchfeld]. It was the first of a series of folk plays and was followed by Der Meineidbauer (1871, tr. The Farmer Forsworn, 1913–15) and Die Kreuzelschreiber (1872, tr. The Crossmakers, 1958). Das vierte Gebot (1878, tr. The Fourth Commandment, 1912) is an early example of naturalism. Anzengruber also wrote short stories and two novels.
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