Library Suhrkamp

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Library Suhrkamp
LibrarySuhrkamp.JPG
description Book series
publishing company Suhrkamp Verlag
First edition 1951
founder Peter Suhrkamp
Web link www.suhrkamp.de
ZDB 256061-6

The library Suhrkamp ( BS ) is a book series by the Suhrkamp Verlag .

history

On 23. October 1951 the first six volumes were published the first of Peter Suhrkamp personally issued library Suhrkamp, by him as "lovers library for readers elite" thought in the resulting still single, no-frills, "with subtle modern taste" design executed . It should encompass as significant a selection as possible from the classics of literature and the humanities of the 20th century.

The story Die Morgenlandfahrt by Suhrkamp's friend Hermann Hesse was selected for volume 1 ; Volume 10 offered a bilingual edition of TS Eliot's famous cat book (the poems served as the basis for the musical Cats ); in volume 100 a selection of Peter Suhrkamp's publishing correspondence was published in 1963 under the title Letters to the Authors ; Volume 1000 finally was in 1989 Samuel Beckett's short story volume More beatings than wings .

Regarding the (basically consecutive) numbering, it should be noted that there are a number of “blank numbers”, as the titles originally intended under these numbers never appeared. It is - errors excepted! - by the following: 138, 144, 180, 248, 268, 291, 304, 308, 340, 347, 349, 355, 364, 374, 401, 432, 460-63, 475, 484, 502, 531-32 (planned and announced several times for the volumes Paul Celan , Transfers I. and II. , planned since 1969 , which finally appeared outside of the BS until the 1980s), 566, 569, 664, 687, 692, 735, 864, 897, 913, 925, 932, 960, 996, 1074 (?), 1078 (?), 1081 (?), 1089 (?). Some of these "gaps" were filled later, for example volume number 396 (actually "due" in 1974) in 1995, with Kenzaburo Oe , The Day He Wiped My Tears away . Likewise, volume number 977 (actually “due” in 1988) in 1990 with Vincenzo Consolo , Die Wunde im April .

On the other hand, as an exception - perhaps inadvertently - two different titles were published under seven numbers. The numbering practice of the series does not actually provide for an exchange of titles that are no longer common, as is known from the Insel-Bücherei of Insel Verlag, a publishing subsidiary of Suhrkamp:

  • BS 2: Editha Klipstein , Das Hotel in Kastilien (1951) and Walter Benjamin , Berlin childhood around nineteen hundred (1962)
  • BS 29: Gotthard Jedlicka , Sight and Experience (1955) or George Bernard Shaw , A Negro Girl Seeks God (1962)
  • BS 30: Fritz Ernst , From Goethe's Circle of Friends and Other Essays (1955) and EM Forster , Views of the Novel (1962)
  • BS 42: George Bernard Shaw, Music in London (1957) or Shaw, Heroes (1970)
  • BS 46: Shakespeare's Sturm (German by Rudolf Alexander Schröder (1958)) and Ernst Penzoldt , Squirrel (1963)
  • BS 65: Hermann Hesse, Schön ist die Jugend (1961) or Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund (1970)
  • BS 66: Henry Green , enthusiasm (1961) or George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion (1970)

Six special volumes in a one-off edition were published without a number (the first three with a foreword / article by Siegfried Unseld ):

  • From abandoned works (1968)
  • Poetry. From the poetry books of the Suhrkamp Library (1979)
  • Modern classics. A Reader (1989)
  • Literature by Women (1997)
  • The last cherry pit. Small collection of short texts (2004)
  • Why read At least 24 reasons. (2020)

Around 1500 volumes have now appeared in this series.

Until about the mid-1970s, the volumes in the series were printed in lead type. The envelopes were initially designed by Rudolf Kroth, a student of Hans Leistikow , and from 1959 by Willy Fleckhaus . In the photo above, the different designs can also be clearly seen on the spine of the book. Until 2001, the appearance of the series was colorful, with certain types of color in the design of the dust jackets in phases. In addition to the common white, the 60s and early 70s also knew dark, muted colors, where the black title print was not always easy to read. The 80s also brought unusual metallic shades, as well as gold and silver. In the 1990s, the series stood out for its bright, very strong colors that did not exist in the library's earlier years. The cover color black was of particular importance in the decades of publication; it was reserved for late works as well as volumes with a special existential or poetological context and outstanding literary documents from or at the time of the so-called Third Reich. Examples include "The Book of Questions" by Edmond Jabès, "Day and Night Books" by Theodor Haecker, "The Experience of Death" by Paul Ludwig Landsberg, "De profundis" by Oscar Wilde, "The Ninth Hour" by Peter Huchel or "The Meridian" by Paul Celan. While other titles could change the cover color from edition to edition, the black books always remained black even in new editions. This context initially seemed to have been forgotten since the noughties, but then returned in 2016 with the black volume "The Third Reich of Dreams" by Charlotte Beradt (volume 1496). The layout of the volumes has changed since 2001, and so has the format since 2012. The previously colored and smoothly laminated paper envelopes were replaced almost entirely by white, more sensitive hand-made envelopes and colored endpapers were introduced. Since 2015, old titles have not been reissued, or only in exceptional cases, but are only available as print-on-demand, with a lesser configuration, consisting of a simple, white brochure instead of the hard cover (still in the Fleckhaus- Cover design) and adhesive binding instead of the thread stitching that is otherwise common in this series. Volumes in the original design are only available on the second-hand book market. New titles mostly appear (not generally; Volume 1499, which came out in 2017, was back in the old size) in a larger format.

Reputation of the series

For many Suhrkamp authors, acceptance into the Suhrkamp library was a special honor. Uwe Johnson, for example, wrote in his reply to the sending of the sketch of an accident victim in the BS to the Suhrkamp publisher Unseld that he would like to have a work in this series of his "own right". For Thomas Bernhard, the publication of his works in the library was also an important concern, and Unseld "bought" the right not to have to print Bernhard's dramolets that mock the Federal President by including the youth work Ave Vergil in the collection. Gershom Scholem wanted a special copy of each of his BS titles in full leather. Unseld fulfilled the wish of the famous author who had been taken over by Rhein-Verlag and had two copies of each Scholem title bound accordingly (cf. Marbacher Magazin 140, Über Haschisch und Kabbala ). Most frequently, Thomas Bernhard and Hermann Hesse are represented in the Suhrkamp library with more than twenty titles each, and Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, Mircea Eliade, Max Frisch, James Joyce, Hans Erich Nossack, Rainer Maria Rilke, Bernard with ten or more works Shaw and Robert Walser. The strong presence in the series also represented a highlighted reference to certain authors in the publishing house's policy. All original editions of Robert Walser's writings (with the exception of Fritz Kocher's essays ) were reissued in the library as individual volumes, thereby emphasizing their individual work character. Individual authors such as Pierre Michon appear with their books by Suhrkamp exclusively in the BS. Two other German publishers published comparable book series, Hanser the still existing Edition Akzente , occasionally supplemented by new volumes , and Klett-Cotta Cotta's Library of Modernism , which in its original form from the beginning of the 80s to the mid-90s in over a hundred, uniformly furnished volumes appeared and had a stronger focus on conservative and right-wing anarchist authors (e.g. with a number of titles by Friedrich Georg Jünger, Rudolf Borchardt, Gottfried Benn, Gerhard Nebel and Ernst Jünger), but also forgotten authors of modernism and pearls published in French, Scandinavian and North American literature. The Cotta library has strong similarities and points of contact with the BS, but after ten years of regular programs with new titles in the series it was no longer maintained by the publisher (cf. the almanac World literature as light luggage. Cotta's Library of Modernity ). Published over 30 in the 70s and 80s, and then until the 2000s about twelve new library Suhrkamp titles per year, there are now only about three to four volumes of real new publications annually. Volume 1501 came out in autumn 2017, the number 1500 was only given to the "Sondagen" by Thomas Kling in June 2020. The important volume of poems was first published by Dumont in 2002, following the departure of Kling von Suhrkamp, ​​who died early. The publishing house commemorates the 15th anniversary of his death with the number 1500 of the Suhrkamp library.

Authors and translators

A small selection of authors published in the BS :

Among the translators at the Suhrkamp library, most of whom are recognized authors themselves, we can mention, for example: Heinz Czechowski , Peter Handke , Johannes Hübner , Sarah Kirsch , Dagmar Leupold , Helmut von den Steinen .

literature

  • Wolfgang Schneider (editor): Library Suhrkamp. Bibliography. Volume 1 to Volume 1000, 1951 to 1989 , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-518-09800-4
  • Modern classics. A reading book by the Suhrkamp library on the occasion of the publication of the 1000th volume , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1989 (contains a short history of the Suhrkamp library by Siegfried Unseld)
  • History of Suhrkamp Verlag July 1, 1950 to June 30, 1990 (= Volume 5 of the series "40 Years of Literature in Suhrkamp Verlag"), Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-518-09780-6

Web links

Wikisource: Directory of the book series  - sources and full texts
Commons : Library Suhrkamp  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fleckhaus - Design, Revolte, Rainbow . Edited by Hans-Michael Koetzle, Carsten Wolff , Michael Buhrs, Petra Hesse, Hartmann Books, Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-3-96070-012-8 , pp. 149ff