He began his series of tales of the middle ages and the dawn of the modern era in 1881 with The Burgomaster's Wife.

In 1889 the precarious state of his health forced him to resign his chair at the university.
Notwithstanding his sufferings and the obstacles they placed in his path, he continued his wonderful intellectual activity until the end.
His last novel, Arachne, was issued but a short time before his death, which took place on August 7, 1898, at the Villa Ebers, in Tutzing, on the Starenberg Lake, near Munich, where most of his later life was spent.

The monument erected to his memory by his own indefatigable activity consists of sixteen novels, all of them of perennial value to historical students, as well as of ever-fresh charm to lovers of fiction, many treatises on his chosen branch of learning, two great works of reference on Egypt and Palestine, and short stories, fairy tales, and biographies.
The Story of my Life is characterized by a captivating freshness.

Ebers was born under a lucky star, and the pictures of his early home life, his restless student days at that romantic old seat of learning, Gottingen, are bright, vivacious, and full of colour.

The biographer, historian, and educator shows himself in places, especially in the sketches of the brothers Grimm, and of Froebel, at whose institute, Keilhau, Ebers received the foundation of his education.