Franz Hedrich

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Franz Hedrich (born July 30, 1823 in Podskaly (Podskali), Pisek district in Bohemia , † October 31, 1895 in Edinburgh ) was a German-Bohemian writer and ghostwriter of the author Alfred Meißner .

Life

Franz Hedrich grew up in poor circumstances in the Fideikommissherrschaft Worlik on the Rustikalhof Podskaly (Lhota), parish Mirovice in the Pisek district, only learned the German language late in Prague when his father went to Prague as a musician and became a bassoonist at the Prague City Theater. In the 1840s he became known through Moritz Hartmann with the literary circle Young Bohemia , befriended Alfred Meißner and was promoted in his literary work.

In the revolutionary year of 1848, Franz Hedrich was elected to the Frankfurt National Assembly as a substitute for the north Bohemian district of Tannwald in the Jizera Mountains . There he was a member of the extreme left in 1848/49. Returned to Prague in 1849, he was arrested and expelled from the country in 1852. Hedrich changed his place of residence several times in the following years, went on trips with Alfred Meißner, from whom he was sustainably promoted, married Jeannette Annie Barron in Edinburgh in 1871 , whose fortune he gradually u. a. gambled away in Monaco . From 1883 he lived in Lindau on Lake Constance near his benefactor and employer Alfred Meißner.

Hedrich's grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh.

Since the 1850s he had entered into a partnership with Meißner as a ghostwriter , for whom he did extensive literary preparatory work for a fee. As a result, Hedrich had a considerable share in many of the writer's short stories. When Hedrich had used up his wife's fortune, he blackmailed Meißner into making payments with the threat of publicizing their literary cooperation. More and more cornered by Hedrich's continued demands for money and threats and his social existence endangered, Alfred von Meißner committed suicide in 1885 in Bregenz, his residence on Lake Constance. In 1889 Hedrich made the relationship public with a revelatory letter from Alfred Meißner - Franz Hedrich . The subsequent debate between Meißner and Hedrich supporters turned into a literary scandal in 1889/90. In 1895 Franz Hedrich died in Edinburgh in Scotland, his wife's country of origin.

As a freelance author, Hedrich was productive, published a few titles under his name, but remained unsuccessful in literary terms.

Publications

  • Cain. Dramatic poem in 3 acts. Leipzig: Herbig 1851.
  • Lady Esther Stanhope, the Queen of Tadmor. Tragedy in 3 acts. Leipzig: Herbig 1853.
  • In the high mountains. Two night pieces. With a foreword by Alfred Meißner. Berlin: Janke 1862.
  • Moccagama (drama), 1853
  • Baron and Countess (drama), 1855
  • Balbina. Morals from our days (novella), 1865
  • Alfred Meissner - Franz Hedrich. Replica. Leipzig: Danz [1889].
  • Alfred Meißner - Franz Hedrich. History of their literary relationship based on the letters that Alfred Meißner wrote to Franz Hedrich from 1854 until his death in 1885. Berlin: Janke 1890.

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Franz Hedrich  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Inscription in his tombstone at Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh
personal data
SURNAME Hedrich, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION bohemian writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1823
PLACE OF BIRTH Podskal near Prague
DATE OF DEATH October 31, 1895
Place of death Edinburgh