Hermann Georg Scheffauer

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Hermann Georg Scheffauer

Hermann Georg Scheffauer (* 1878 in San Francisco , USA ; † October 7, 1927 in Berlin ) was a German-American writer and translator . In America and Germany he wrote under the name Herman George Scheffauer .

Live and act

Little is known about Scheffauer's youth, education, and early adulthood in America. In California he frequented artistic and literary bohemian circles . He was on friendly terms with the poet George Sterling (1869–1926) and other members of the Bohemian Club who met regularly on the Bohemian Grove . He was married to the English children's author Ethel Talbot (1888–1976). Scheffauer gave up his architecture studies and wrote poetry and plays; while he was promoted by Ambrose Bierce , with whom he later fell out.

In 1910 Scheffauer went to Germany, where he published other poems, stories and plays as well as essayistic works. He also worked as a translator. In addition to works by Georg Kaiser and Klabund , he translated Herr und Hund , Disorder and Early Suffering and other stories by Thomas Mann ; some of the translations were only published posthumously. Thomas Mann also wanted to entrust him with the translation of his novel The Magic Mountain , but this failed due to the resistance of his American publisher Alfred A. Knopf . The magic mountain was then translated not by Scheffauer, but by Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter (1867–1963).

Scheffauer and Thomas Mann had a good, collegial, almost friendly relationship. In April 1927 they jointly took over the editorship of the new series Romane der Welt, published by Th. Knaur Nachf . By March 1928 a total of 58 volumes had appeared in the series, e.g. B. Taipi of Herman Melville and Cashel Byron's Profession by George Bernard Shaw (both with a foreword by Scheffauer), Wild West novels of Zane Gray and travel novels and stories by Eugene Binder of Krieglstein . Scheffauer died of suicide in 1927 at the age of 49 .

Works (selection)

Poems, stories, plays:

  • Of Both Worlds: Poems . AM Robertson, San Francisco 1903
  • Looms of Life: Poems . The Neale Publishing Company, New York 1908
  • Drake in California: Ballads and Poems . AC Fifield, London 1912
  • The Ruined Temple , 1912 (online edition)
  • The Masque of the Elements , JM Dent & Sons, London and EP Dutton & Co., New York 1912 ( online edition )
  • The new Shylock. Play in four acts , Berliner Theaterverlag, Berlin 1913
  • The Thief of Fame . In: Harper's Magazine , August 1913 Issue, pp. 399-408
  • The champagne ship and other stories , Ullstein Verlag , Berlin 1925
  • Atlantis , London in Snow , Manhattan , no year (online edition)

Translations:

  • Thomas Mann: Bashan and I , 1924
  • Georg Kaiser: Gas , 1924
  • Klabund: Peter the Czar , 1925
  • Thomas Mann: Children and Fools , 1928
  • Thomas Mann: Early Sorrow , 1930
  • Thomas Mann: A Man and His Dog , 1930

Essays:

  • The German Prison House. How to Convert it Into a Torture Chamber and a Charnel. Suggestions to President Wilson , self-published by the author, Berlin 1919.
  • The Infant in the Newssheet. An Ode against the Age , The Overseas Publishing Company, Hamburg 1921
  • The land of God. The face of the new America , P. Steegemann Verlag, Hanover 1923
  • The intellectual America of today , Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 1925
  • If I were German! An American's revelations about Germany's greatness and tragedy , Max Koch Verlag, Leipzig 1925

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b See the biographical information in the Online Archive of California: Herman George Scheffauer Photograph Album, ca. 1885-ca. 1925
  2. Cf. Roy Morris: Ambrose Bierce. Alone in bad company. Biography . Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, pp. 347, 370.
  3. a b c cf. Heinz J. Armbrust, Gert Heine: Herman George Scheffauer . In: Who is who in the life of Thomas Mann. A dictionary of persons . Publishing house Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt a. M. 2008, p. 57, p. 247 mw Nachw.