One of the crowd

One of the crowd is a novella by Wilhelm Raabe , which was written in March 1858 and published in the Stuttgart “Hausbl Blätter” that same year. The book edition was published by Schotte in Berlin in 1859. Meyen gives six reviews from the years 1860 to 1949.

content

The narrator has grown old over a passion that resembles that of a “garbage collector”. In his little story he tells of one of his rare finds. He compares it to a "trampled jewelry pin". It is simply a torn, soiled sheet on which verses are written down by a woman's hand. The old man goes in search of the author Walter R. and actually finds a young poet on his death bed, "cut off from the fresh spring world outside". Anna, the bride and nurse of the doomed man, should turn away the visitor. However, the kind old gentleman wins the dying man's trust as he brings the speech to the poem. It turns out that Walter R. dictated the verses to Anna. The visitor is introduced to another poem. Certain of his death next autumn, the poet wants to despair. The old man gives consolation: “The life of consecrated people counts in seconds, not in years.” Finally, Walter R. dies, as prophesied, a few months later. Before his death, the poet made the narrator promise to take care of Anna. That's how it happens.

expenditure

First edition

• Half a mile, half more! Stories, sketches and rhymes by Wilhelm Raabe . 177 pages. Ernst Schotte, Berlin 1859 (The way to laugh. The student from Wittenberg. Christmas ghosts. Lorenz Scheibenhart. One of the crowd)

Used edition

• One of the crowd . Pp. 339-355. With an appendix, written by Karl Hoppe , pp. 588–591 in Karl Hoppe (arrangement), Hans Oppermann ( arrangement ): Die Kinder von Finkenrode . The way to laugh . The student from Wittenberg . Christmas ghosts . Lorenz Scheibenhart . One of the crowd. The old university . The Junker von Denow . From the life book of the little schoolmaster Michel Haas . Who can turn it around? Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1992. Vol. 2 (2nd edition, obtained from Eberhard Rohse ), ISBN 3-525-20164-8 in Karl Hoppe (ed.), Jost Schillemeit (ed.), Hans Oppermann (ed. ), Kurt Schreinert (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete Works. Braunschweig edition. 24 vols.

literature

• Fritz Meyen : Wilhelm Raabe. Bibliography. 438 pages. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973 (2nd edition). Supplementary volume 1, ISBN 3-525-20144-3 in Karl Hoppe (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete Works. Braunschweig edition . 24 vols.
• Cecilia von Studnitz : Wilhelm Raabe. Writer. A biography. 346 pages. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-7700-0778-6

Individual evidence

1. ↑ von Studnitz, p. 309, entry 7
2. ↑ Wilhelm Raabe: One from the crowd. In: Friedrich Wilhelm Hackländer (ed.), Edmund Hoefer (ed.): Hausblätter (= Hausblätter. Volume 4). Published by Adolph Krabbe, Stuttgart 1858, p. 50.
3. ↑ Hoppe in the edition used, pp. 588–589
4. ^ Meyen, p. 327