Ghost book

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Title copper from volume 1 with a scene from "Der Freischütz"

The Ghost Book is an anthology of horror stories by August Apel and Friedrich Laun , the pseudonym of Friedrich August Schulze. The series appeared in 7 volumes from 1810 to 1818, with the last three volumes being published both under the title Ghost Book and under the Wunderbuch . After Apel's death in 1816, Friedrich de la Motte Foqué was co-editor of the last volume.

Influences and effects

In the ghost book , Apel and Laun draw on oriental themes, local poetic folk art and French fairy tales. Each of the stories deals with specific motifs of the ghostly and supernatural.

The first volume appeared in 1810 and with the same reprint, except for the year and a comma after the place of publication, 1811. It begins with Apel's story Der Freischütz . It stands within the story collection for the motif of summoning demons .

Decades later, Friedrich Kind , a classmate (Thomasschule Leipzig) of August Apel, remembers that Der Freischütz was the last story in a pile that he had put together for Carl Maria von Weber in 1817 and that they sifted through in search of material for an opera . But the overly tragic ending made the narrative in their judgment unsuitable. Only with a modified, happy ending, with a hermit, a demonic Kaspar and a happy young Annchen, did it finally go into Kinds libretto (1820) of the free shooter .

The motif of magic in ball casting appears earlier, for example in Otto von Graben zum Stein . The sketch of a ghost story there, however, contains neither a test shot in front of a prince, nor a bride and her parents, and not even the word free ball . Apel counts his material among the common legends, which he processes narrative without having to cite sources.

The never performed opera Der Freischütz , written in Munich in 1812 and 1813, with text by Franz Xaver von Caspar and music by Carl B. Neuner is also based on Apel's story, as is the musical The Black Rider by Tom Waits and Robert Wilson . However, Caspar only gives a folk legend as a source in 1812 and no source in 1813.

Content of the original volumes

  • Volume 1 (edited by Apel and Schulze):
    • Der Freischütz (Apel)
    • The ideal (Schulze)
    • The spirit of the deceased (Schulze)
    • King Peacock (Apel, based on a French model)
    • The relationship with the spirit world (Schulze)
  • Volume 2 (edited by Apel and Schulze):
    • The Bride of Death (Schulze)
    • The groom preview (Apel)
    • The Todtenkopf (Schulze)
    • The black chamber (Apel)
    • The sign of death (Schulze)
    • The bridal jewelry (Apel)
    • Little legends and fairy tales (Apel)
  • Volume 3 (edited by Apel and Schulze):
    • The premeaning (Schulze)
    • Klara Montgomery (Apel)
    • The ghost deniers (Schulze)
    • The ghost castle (Apel)
    • The Ghost Call (Apel)
    • The dance of death (Apel)
  • Volume 4 (edited by Apel and Schulze):
    • Two New Year's Nights (Apel)
    • The fateful evening (Schulze)
    • Magic love (Apel)
    • The bride in the coffin (Schulze)
    • The underground happiness (Schulze)
  • Volume 5 (edited by Apel and Schulze):
    • The Heckethaler (Schulze)
    • The oath of love (Schulze)
    • The ruin of Paulinzell (Apel)
    • The house honor (Schulze)
    • The shoes on the bars (Apel)
    • Legend (Schulze)
    • The silver fräulein (Apel)
  • Volume 6 (edited by Apel and Schulze):
    • Preface (Apel)
    • Swanehild (Schulze)
    • The Guardian Spirit (Apel)
    • The wax figure (Schulze)
    • Blinding work (Schulze)
    • The mermaid (Schulze)
    • The monk (Schulze)
    • The red thread (Schulze)
    • The Lying Stone (Schulze)
  • Volume 7 (Ed. Von Schulze and de la Motte Foqué)
    • Preface (Schulze)
    • The three Templars (Friedrich de la Motte Foqué)
    • The love ring (Schulze) 
    • The virgin of the Pöhlberg (Schulze)
    • The mountain monk (Karl Borromäus von Miltitz) 
    • The Miss from the Lake (Schulze)
    • Aunt Bleiche (Karl Borromäus von Miltitz) 
    • Friedbert (the same)
    • Old master Ehrenfried and his family (Friedrich de la Motte Foqué)

expenditure

The first edition appeared in 7 volumes between 1810 and 1818 by Göschen in Leipzig. Volumes 5 to 7 were also published by Göschen in Leipzig under the title "Wunderbuch". The first volumes were reprinted by Macklot in Stuttgart in 1814 and 1815.

Eight stories from the first two volumes made up the majority of a 1812 entitled Fantasmagoriana, ou Recueil d'Histoires d'Apparitions de Specters, Revenans, Fantomes, etc .; traduit de l'allemand, par un amateur published French anthology of German horror stories, translated by Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès . The collection included:

  • L'Amour Muet (Original: Silent Love by Johann Karl August Musäus )
  • Portraits de Famille (Original: The pictures of the ancestors of Apel)
  • L'Heure Fatale (Original: The relationship with the spirit world of Schulze)
  • La Tête de Mort (Original: The Death Head of Apel)
  • La Morte Fiancée (Original: The Dead Bride of Apel)
  • Le Revenant (Original: The spirit of the deceased von Schulze)
  • La Chambre grise (Original: The gray office of Heinrich Clauren )
  • La Chambre noire (Original: The black chamber of Apel)

Five of the stories from the Fantasmagoriana appeared in 1813 in an English translation by Sarah Elizabeth Utterson (together with a narration by the translator) under the title Tales of the Dead :

  • The Family Portraits (Original: The pictures of the ancestors of Apel)
  • The Fated Hour (Original: The relationship with the spirit world of Schulze)
  • The Death's Head (Original: Der Todtenkopf von Apel)
  • The Death-Bride (Original: Die Todtenbraut von Apel)
  • The Storm (Utterson)

The edition of Fantasmagoriana was one of the inspirations when Lord Byron , Percy Bysshe Shelley , Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Dr. Shelley were in the Villa Diodati in Cologny on Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816. William Polidori passed the time by writing scary stories. This is how two of the most formative works of fantastic literature emerged, Shelley's Frankenstein and Polidori's The Vampire .

Newer editions:

  • Reclam, Leipzig 1883, Reclam's Universal Library 1791/1795, 662 pp. (Volume 1–4)
  • Reclam, Leipzig 1927, 670 p. With an afterword by Robert Neumann
  • Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-7466-0077-4 , 419 pages, with an afterword by Mathias Heydenbluth (selected volume)
  • Insel, Frankfurt a. M. 1992, ISBN 3-458-33088-7 , 300 pages (selected volume)
  • Olms, Hildesheim 2007 (volumes 5–7, corresponds to the "wonder books")
  • Blitz, Windeck 2016–2017, complete new edition (1–7) in three volumes (Volume 1, 399 pages, with a foreword by Markus K. Korb; Volume 2, 366 pages, with an afterword by Urania Milevski, Volume 3 . 406 p., With an afterword by Felix Woitkowski)
  • BoD, Norderstedt, 2017, ISBN 978-3-739-22823-5 , 572 pages (volumes 1–5)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Felix Woitkowski: A ghost book of sublime indecision. Epilogue . In: August Apel, Friedrich Laun, Felix Woitkowski (eds.): Das Gespensterbuch. From ruins to Ehrenfried. 1st edition. tape 3 . Blitz Verlag, Windeck 2017, p. 399-405 .
  2. ↑ August Apel and Friedrich Laun , Ghost Book 1810 . Ghost book 1811 . Volume 1, Verlag Göschen, Leipzig
  3. ↑ Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 15 (1882), pp. 742-743 .
  4. ↑ Friedrich Kind: Creation story of the free shooter . In: Der Freischütz, Volks-Oper in three lifts, Göschen, Leipzig, 1843, pp. 117–123 .
  5. ↑ Otto von Graben zum Stein: Monthly discussions of the realm of spirits, Volume 1, V piece . Samuel Benjamin Waltern, Leipzig, 1731, pages 609–614
  6. ^ Caspar's libretto by Munich Freischützen 1812 and 1813 . Open the Sources sub-item in the Reference texts
    window .