Pandora series
The Pandora (P) series is a series of books published in 1920 with 40 titles and in 1921 with 12 titles by the Leipziger Insel Verlag as a side piece to the Insel-Bücherei (IB). It mainly contained foreign-language texts with smaller works in the original versions of the authors, with the exception of a title with translations of German poems into Russian , and formed part of the multilingual “Orbis Literarum” (world literature).
Edition history as well as represented languages and authors
Issue occasion
Devaluation of the paper mark and shortage of foreign currency
The idea for the edition of foreign-language literature in the original languages in Insel Verlag came from the cosmopolitan publisher Stefan Zweig . Immediately after the First World War, he assumed that the import of foreign books to Germany for reading in the original version would be more difficult in the long term due to the increasingly unfavorable exchange rates between the mark and foreign currencies. On January 31, 1918 , the paper mark had lost half of its value against the international reserve currency, the US dollar , and three quarters of its value on January 31 of the following year. Their further decline was in sight. Under this impression, Zweig developed his idea of a book production with foreign original works in Insel Verlag in a letter dated February 27, 1919 to the publisher Anton Kippenberg , with which he also wanted to forestall competing companies from other publishers. After initial hesitation, Kippenberg joined in with this project, as he was particularly impressed by the economic argument. So he put it in a later advertising to justify this project that it
"For the educated German who has never, even in the hours of war, lost the intellectual connection with the cultures of Europe, has become almost impossible to obtain books from abroad."
At a meeting in Leipzig in October 1919, the details of the project, which was to consist of three book series complementing each other to form the “Orbis Literarum”, were worked out. The character of the series for Zweig and Kippenberg lay in its classicism, which is reflected in the correspondence between the two to work out the series program. The necessary advertising measures were also decided at the meeting. A first advertisement in the Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel in 1919 was intended to draw the book market's attention to the planned book series, and another from February 17, 1920 to mark the business area against any publishers competing with similar ideas. Zweig also pointed to the advantages of leaflet supplements in the series, which refer to all series programs. Well-known authors, such as Thomas Mann , and other public figures were also asked to use review copies for the series project in corresponding publications. Thomas Mann then announced a public statement that appeared in the Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten for the Christmas business in 1920 . On February 15, 1921, Hugo von Hofmannsthal's essay followed in the Neue Freie Presse .
The "Orbis Literarum"
In detail: The “ Libri Librorum ” (books of books) series would bring great works in the handy format of the “Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst Edition”, which was also used successfully in the publisher's German classics. The texts printed on thin printing paper would be available in linen and leather covers. Medium-sized works and anthologies of poetry would be the focus of the second series, the “ Bibliotheca Mundi ” (World Library).
And finally, in the case of the “Pandora” series described here, which would present shorter texts of approx. 6 sheets , such as novellas, stories, pieces or compilations of poems, the equipment and conception should be sent directly to the one that has been successfully on the market since 1912 with excellent sales Insel-Bücherei to be linked. It would supplement the two series with books of a larger size and, with its own sample papers, special title plates and its own signet, also have its own face vis-à-vis the IB. Ultimately, she only reached 52 titles.
In the aftermath, of course, it can be stated that the audience response hoped for by Zweig and Kippenberg largely failed to materialize in all three book series, which was not only due to the currency stabilization that had already been successfully initiated in November 1923 with the introduction of the Rentenmark . Rather, the buyers did not want to pay the relatively high prices of the entire series and the selected texts were probably not attractive enough for the audience or too demanding.
Export of the series
Most likely, the export of the “Pandora” series was also considered. On the one hand, German-language titles were included in the program that were already successfully represented in the Insel-Bücherei and should continue to be published there, and were therefore already available to the German public, such as Immanuel Kant's Zum Ewigen Frieden (P 3 = IB 228 / 1), Joseph Eichendorffs From the life of a good-for-nothing (P 8 = IB 224) or ETA Hoffmann's Das Fräulein von Scuderi (P 35 = IB 190). On the other hand were z. B. German poets in Russian transmissions (P 49) - a chronologically ordered anthology that ranges from Goethe to Rilke - difficult to imagine for a German readership to be sought in Germany in view of the German-language original editions they certainly prefer. Even the Russian emigrants living in Germany after the October Revolution of 1917 would probably have been too small a group of buyers for an edition of 10,000 copies.
Languages used
The Pandora series was published in the following languages: German (8), American English (5), British English (9), French (15), Italian (6), Latin (2), Russian (5) and Spanish (2). For the Russian-language editions, the publisher even used advertising material in the original language (Fig.).
According to the second stock exchange ad for the “Orbis Literarum” dated February 17, 1920, “Detailed announcement about BIBLIOTHECA MUNDI. LIBRI LIBRORUM. PANDORA. three complementary collections of masterpieces of world literature in the original languages ”, the 100 planned titles should include volumes in Swiss German , Danish , Flemish , Portuguese and Serbian in addition to those in Ancient Greek and Hebrew . However, these languages were no longer used due to the discontinuation of the series.
Authors
The range of authors represented at Pandora , who are dominated by classical music, spans antiquity with Tacitus ( Germania , P 7), through the Middle Ages with Petrarch ( Trionfi , P 20) and Boccaccio ( Vita di Dante , P 42) on Shakespeare ( Sonnets , P 1) and finally on poets, writers and philosophers from the 17th to 19th centuries, such as Angelus Silesius ( from Angelus Silesius' Cherubinisches Wanderer and sacred songs , P 34), Prosper Mérimée ( Carmen , P 24) , Lord Byron ( Marino Faliero Doge of Venice , P 15), Leo N. Tolstoi ( Folk Tales , P 45) and Kant (see above). The series that began with an English-language title was discontinued again with one: the Great political documents of the United States of America (P 52) published by Paul Darmstädter .
Equipment, requirements and occurrence
Cover, title plates and signet
In order to visually differentiate the series from the Insel-Bücherei, the publisher initially selected four special Rizzi binding papers. Two of these were used to a small extent in the late 1920s in subsequent editions of titles in the Insel-Bücherei. Conversely, sample papers from the Insel-Bücherei were occasionally used for the late Pandora binding rates, because the Pandora papers were probably no longer in stock.
The series was given its own logo in two sizes, designed by Walter Tiemann in 1920 . While the small signet with which the series began was 20 mm high, the large one measured 25 mm here, was first used for P 2 (Molière: Le Malade Imaginaire ) and adorned all but P 42 (Boccaccio: Vita di Dante ) Ribbon of the 2nd delivery from 1921 (P 41 - P 52). The signet shows in an upright oval a two-masted sailing ship on undulating water and above it the name "PANDORA". It was mostly printed on the title page, but in some volumes it can also be found on the flyleaf .
In contrast to the Insel-Bücherei, the frames of the title plates, which were printed exclusively in black, were provided with special geometric patterns, probably to soften the visual austerity that resulted from the lack of colored printing elements. Up to volume number 40, only six different variants were used several times and from Pandora 41 onwards, title-specific designs were used, so that there are a total of 18 title plate samples.
Illustrations
The volumes in the series were almost exclusively pure text volumes. Only three titles were given woodcuts or initials . In the majority of the volumes, the authors' dates of life are noted.
- Illustrations and initials of the illustrated volumes
P 13, Dickens: A Christmas Carol - frontispiece by John Leech
P 37, De la Fontaine: Fables - woodcut by Virgil Solis
Fonts
The fonts used all belong to the Antiqua family with the exception of the Russian-language titles. These were set with Russian letters and in the spelling that was used until the Russian spelling reform of 1918 , mostly by the printer of the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf & Härtel .
Conditions and occurrences
For the edition , the printed edition of which, according to the publisher, should have been around 10,000 per title, paper with a high amount of wood and inferior cardboard had to be used due to the post-war material shortage , which often led to damage to the book spine during use, so that many of the tapes only deteriorated Quality have been preserved.
Due to the poor quality of the paper and the weak demand, after 1931 a considerable part of the stocks may be spoiled, as Pandora titles no longer appear in the publisher's directories after 1931. This also indicates the relative rarity of all Pandora titles, which is nowhere near adequate for the print run. Probably only very few copies of printed sheets, predominantly English-language titles, which had withstood the spoiling and the effects of the Second World War , were uniformly printed in the Leipzig publishing house after 1945, i.e. more than 25 years after printing, in a rather unadorned green-gray cover with the printed one pasted over Tied up title plates and sold. These cardboard covers were originally intended for subsequent editions of the title of the Insel-Bücherei, Schüttelreime (IB 219/3), written by the publisher himself . So far, around a dozen Pandora volumes have been recorded here.
German series title
List of German series titles
The following table covers all German-language Pandora print sheets regardless of whether they have been published in this series in every case or have been transferred to the Insel-Bücherei with their remaining stocks, if these texts were removed from the Pandora series.
Pandora number |
author | title | Island library number |
IB edition |
---|---|---|---|---|
3 | Immanuel Kant | To eternal peace | [228/1] | - |
8th | Joseph von Eichendorff | From the life of a good-for-nothing | 224 / 1B | 4th edition after 21. – 25. |
12 | Friedrich Schiller | William Tell | not taken over | - |
16 | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Hermann and Dorothea | 363 | EA |
not published [28] |
Hans Holbein the Elder J. | Images of death | 221 / 1A | 3rd edition 21. – 30. |
30th | Jeremias Gotthelf | The strawberry mareili | 364 | EA |
31 | Adalbert Stifter | The forest path | 367 | EA |
34 | Angelus Silesius | From the Angelus Silesius cherubine wanderer along with sacred songs | 41 / 1B | 6th edition before 36. – 40. |
35 | ETA Hoffmann | The Miss von Scuderi | [190] | - |
Acquisitions in the island library
Remaining holdings of book blocks of five German-language titles were taken over to the Insel-Bücherei starting from 1922, as evidenced by private date entries by old hand in the books, and sold with their equipment and volume number. Only editions that had already appeared in the Insel-Bücherei were considered for acceptance, such as Eichendorff: From the life of a good-for-nothing (P 8), or were to be included in the series program in the future, such as Goethe: Hermann und Dorothea (P 16), benefactor: Der Waldsteig (P 31). The flyleaf with the Pandora logo was mostly left with the remaining binding. They also have their sheet number and, in contrast to the Fraktur letters that are more frequently used in the Insel-Bücherei titles of the same name, always have a sentence in Antiqua.
Sale of stocks tied up in Pandora equipment
Inventories already tied up in Pandora equipment were sold until 1924 regardless of the transfer to the IB. With the exception of P 8 (Eichendorff), they were shown as deliverable both in the publisher's general directory, which was not completed until October 1, 1924, and in a list of titles intended for bookshops. The latter contains the Insel-Buch 371 / A ( Beethoven : An die ferne Geliebte ) published in 1924 .
The Wilhelm Tell edition
The probably rarest title in this series, Friedrich Schiller's Wilhelm Tell (P 12), was not adopted. This is certainly due to the length of the text, which was eight printed sheets. Usually only texts up to six, in exceptional cases seven, printed sheets for the island library were considered. It is no longer possible to determine whether it was sold in full due to the low price, but was worn out in schools ( class set ) or possibly also in the theater, or whether the remaining stocks that had not been tied up were spoiled after 1924 because a permanent takeover in the island Library was out of the question.
The "Pictures of Death" planned as a Pandora band by Hans Holbein the Elder. J.
The partial edition of the woodcut series Pictures of Death by Hans Holbein the Younger, prepared as number 28 for this series , which had already appeared as the title of the Insel-Bücherei since 1917, probably remained in the Insel-Bücherei in view of the poor sales success of the Pandora series. The partial edition of Pandora can be recognized by the sheet number "P 28" and, in the case of a few copies, by the inadvertently integrated Pandora flyleaf with the Pandora logo.
Foreign-language Pandora titles in translations in the Insel-Bücherei
The interrelationships between the Insel-Bücherei, which initially served as a model for the foreign-language series, and the Pandora series can be seen in the fact that on the one hand not a few Pandora titles brought the original versions of texts that were previously successfully translated into German in the IB program and on the other hand original Pandora texts, regardless of possible sales problems in this series, later found a counterpart in translations in the IB. Many volumes have been modified and transferred to the other row. For example, in anthologies of prose texts and poetry, changed selections were made or content-related additions, such as afterwords or explanations, but also reductions were made. In the case of the Pandora volumes, the illustrations enclosed with the island books were often omitted. German translations of 20 Pandora titles are available in the Insel-Bücherei.
Pandora number |
author |
Title b / w illustrations, other changes |
year | IB number | translator |
Title Illustrations, Other Changes |
Year of EA | |
1 | William Shakespeare | Sonnets | 1920 | 898 / A | Paul Celan | Twenty-one sonnets (English and German) |
1967 | |
898 / B | Twenty-one sonnets ( Wolfgang Kaußen : essay “Celan's Shakespeare” and appendix “Paul Celan: Four early transcriptions of Shakespeare sonnets”) |
2001 | ||||||
4th | Ralph W. Emerson | On Nature with Goethe's Nature (Without Afterword) |
1920 | 72/1 | Thora Weigand (Nature II) Wilhelm Weigand (Nature I) |
Nature - Two essays by Emerson | 1913 | |
7th | Publius Cornelius Tacitus | Cornelii Taciti Germania | 1920 | 77 / A | Paul Stefan | Cornelius Tacitus: The Germania | 1913 | |
77 / B |
Johannes Bühler (also afterword and explanations) |
The Germania of Tacitus | 1939 | |||||
11 | Alexander Pope | The Rape of the Lock | 1920 | 99/2 |
Rudolf Alexander Schröder (and epilogue) |
The lock robbery. A comical hero poem (Illustrations: Aubrey Beardsley ) |
1920 | |
879 | 1968 | |||||||
13 | Charles Dickens |
A Christmas Carol (Illustrations: John Leech ) |
1920 | 1209 | Leo field | Christmas Eve (illustrations, some in color: John Leech) |
2000 | |
2010 large format |
Eike Schönfeld | Christmas Eve (Illustrations: Flix ) |
2014
|
|||||
17th | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | Sonnets from the Portuguese | 1920 | 252 / A | Rainer Maria Rilke | Sonnets from Portuguese | 1919 | |
252 / B | Sonnets from Portuguese (English and German) |
1959 | ||||||
252 / C | Sonnets from Portuguese (English and German, epilogue: Elisabeth Kiderlen) |
1991 | ||||||
24 | Prosper Mérimée | Carmen | 1920 | 57 / A | Franz Schnabel | Carmen | 1913 | |
57 / B | Carmen (without chapter 4) |
1951 | ||||||
57 / C | Carmen (with 7 drawings by Ruth Knorr, afterword: Herbert Kühn) |
1973 | ||||||
1399 | Kristian Wachinger | Carmen (Illustrations: Larissa Bertonasco ) |
2014 | |||||
25th | Ѳедоръ Михайловичъ Достоевскiй ( Fyodor Michailowitsch Dostojewski ) |
Великiй инквизиторъ. Чортъ • Кошмаръ Ивана Ѳедоровича (The Grand Inquisitor • The Devil. Ivan Fyodorovich's nightmare) | 1920 | 149 |
Rudolf Kassner (and epilogue) |
The Grand Inquisitor | 1914 | |
32 | Voltaire | Zádig ou La Destinée | 1920 | 171 / 2A | Ernst Hardt | Zadig or the skill | 1920 | |
171 / 2B | Zadig or fate. An oriental story (Illustrations: Marcus Behmer ) |
1975 | ||||||
33 | Giovanni Boccaccio | Be a novella. Con incisione (Six short stories. With 7 woodcuts and 6 initials) |
1920 | 16 / A | Albert Wesselski | Five very graceful stories by the much vilified Giovanni di Boccaccio from Certaldo (seven old Italian woodcuts, essay by Friedrich Schlegel ) |
1912 | |
16 / B | Ten very graceful stories from the Decameron (changed selection and woodcuts, 11 initials) |
1987 | ||||||
37 | Jean de la Fontaine | Fables. Avec des gravures sur bois de Virgil Solis | 1920 | 185 / A | Theodor Etzel | Fables (selection of 50 fables, 9 woodcuts by Grandville ) |
1915 | |
185 / B | Fables of Lafontaine (Changed selection with 31 fables, 31 woodcuts by Grandville) |
1935 | ||||||
38 | EA Poe | The raven and other [6] poems. Preceded by The philosophy of composition | 1920 | 1006/1 | Ursula Wernicke | The Raven. With 3 woodcuts by d'Aragues (bilingual, afterword: EY Meyer , woodcuts, without "other poems") |
1982 | |
1363 | 2012 | |||||||
39 | И. С. Тургеневъ ( Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev ) |
Стихотворөнiя въ прозѢ [SENILIA] (poems in prose) |
1920 | 259 / A | Theodor Commichau | Poems in prose | 1919 | |
259 / B | Poems in prose (double title by Heinrich Vogeler , expanded to include “Die Schwelle” [translation: Wolfgang Kasack ]) |
1987 | ||||||
41 | Н. В. Гоголь ( Nikolai Wassiljewitsch Gogol ) |
Шинель. Носъ (The coat. The nose) |
1921 | 24 / A | Rudolf Kassner (and epilogue) |
The coat. Novella (Without "The Nose") |
1912 | |
24 / B |
Arthur Luther (and epilogue) |
The coat. Novella (without "The Nose", 11 reed pen drawings by Gunter Böhmer ) |
1958 | |||||
42 | Giovanni [di] Boccaccio | Vita di Dante | 1921 | 275 / A |
Otto von Taube (and epilogue) |
The life of Dante (title drawing: Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke ) |
1919 | |
275 / B | Arthur Luther (and epilogue) |
The life of Dante ( Dante engraving: Enea Vico , epilogue: Werner Bahner ) |
1965 | |||||
43 | Gustave Flaubert | Trois Contes [Un Coeur simple. La legend de saint Julien l'Hospitalier. Hérodias] (A simple heart. The legend of St. Julian the Hospitable. Hérodias) |
1921 | 12 | Ernst Hardt | The legend of St. Julian the Hospitable | 1912 | |
76/1 | Herodias | 1913 | ||||||
319/1 | Ernst Sander (and epilogue) |
A simple heart | 1964 | |||||
45 | Л. Н. Толстой (Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy) |
Народные разказы (The Grand Inquisitor • The Devil • Ivan Fyodorovich's Nightmare) |
1921 | 68 |
Alexander Eliasberg (and epilogue) |
Folk Tales (other selection) |
1913 | |
46 | Dante Alighieri | Vita nuova | 1921 | 101 / 3A |
Friedrich von Falkenhausen (also afterword and explanations) |
Dante's new life | 1942 | |
101 / 3B | Karl Förster , Karl Witte, Karl Ludwig Kannegießer | The new life (cover picture: Sandro Botticelli , epilogue: Werner Bahner) |
1965 | |||||
47 | François Villon | Lais. Poésies miscellaneous. Ballades en Jargon (avec index et glossaire, notice biographique: W. Mullert) |
1921 | 883 | HC Artmann | Baladn (German and in Viennese dialect , explanations of words) |
1913 | |
51 | Fioretti di San Francesco | 1921 | 70 |
Rudolf G. Binding (and foreword) |
The most beautiful legends of St. Franz (title woodcut: Ernst Dölling) |
1913 |
Foreign-language titles in the current island library
Due to the changed conditions on the book market, a revival of the series could not be considered for Insel Verlag, also in view of increasing globalization and the growing importance of foreign languages in today's everyday life. However, since 2014 English-language texts have been published in their original version or titles translated into English in the Insel-Bücherei . So far - as of autumn 2019 - the original Pandora title (P 13) came from Dickens: A Christmas Carol (IB 1426), Mark Twains The Awful German Language (IB 1419), Saint-Exupérys The Little Prince (IB 1411), Max Frisch's Questionnaire (IB 1435), Shakespeare's Love Poems (IB 1443), Rilkes Letters to a Young Poet (IB 1450), Virginia Woolfs A Room of One's Own (IB 1468) and Walt Whitmans Leaves of Grass (IB 1459 - until 1968 German Edition as IB 123: "Hymns for the Earth")
literature
- Susanne Buchinger: Stefan Zweig - writer and literary agent. Relations with his German-speaking publishers (1901–1942) . Booksellers Association, Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-7657-2132-8
- Hans-Eugen Bühler u. a. (up to no. 9), Jochen Lengemann (up to no. 20), Insel Verlag (from no. 21) as editor: Insel-Bücherei. Messages for friends. Insel, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 1990 ff. (2008: No. 27), ISSN 0946-3089 (abbr .: IB.M)
- Helmut Jenne: Catalog of the Jenne Collection. Insel-Bücherei - The most beautiful of all book series. 2nd ext. Ed., Published by the author, Schriesheim 2008, vol. 2, pp. 466–473
- Herbert Kästner (Ed.): Insel-Bücherei. Bibliography 1912-1999. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-458-16986-5
- Friedrich Michael (ed.): The island library 1912–1937. Insel, Leipzig 1937
- Helmut K. Musiol: Variations of the island library. (Sales catalog), self-published by the author, Murnau 1989
- Gerd Plantener (ed.): The island library 1912–1984. A bibliography. Self-published by the author, Frankfurt am Main 1985
- Heinz Sarkowski: The island publishing house. A bibliography 1899–1969 . 2nd Edition. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 1999, ISBN 3-458-15611-9
- Heinz Sarkowski, Wolfgang Jeske: The island publishing house 1899-1999. The history of the publisher. Insel, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 1999, ISBN 3-458-16985-7
- Christian Wegner (edit.): Directory of all publications by Insel-Verlag 1899–1924 , Leipzig [1924]
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Since Insel Verlag had used the abbreviation "P" for the sheet number, this was also used here as a series abbreviation. Jenne, on the other hand, uses "Pa".
- ↑ a b c d Link to the exhibition in the German Literature Archive Marbach (DLA) from June 29 to October 16, 2011 "Stefan Zweig's World Library" ( text and pictures ).
- ↑ Thomas Mann: "Editiones Insulae". in: Essays • Speeches • Essays (Vol. 3). Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1986, p. 79 ff.
- ^ Neue Freie Presse of February 15, 1921 (No. 20283), Vienna, pp. 1 f. (ANNO online ).
- ^ Susanne Buchinger: Stefan Zweig - writer and literary agent. Relations with his German-speaking publishers (1901–1942) . Buchhändlervereinigung, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 164
- ↑ This title was last published in 1918 in the Insel-Bücherei im 20. Tausend in the second edition. The Pandora edition of 1920 could have been completely sold out, because in 1924 the 25th thousand of this title had to be printed in the Insel-Bücherei. Remaining stocks of P 3 would have found sales there after being taken over by IB.
- ↑ The entire Pandora edition appeared in the IB .
- ↑ This title was quite successful in the 35th thousand in the Insel-Bücherei until 1920. This means that it cannot be ruled out that the Pandora edition was completely sold out regardless of the different features. In any case, this edition does not appear significantly less often than the 26.-35. Thousands of the IB edition of 1920.
- ^ List of all publications by Insel-Verlag 1899–1924 . Leipzig undated
- ^ Insel-Verlag zu Leipzig: Directory of the Inselbücherei and Pandora (Verlagswerbung IV 460, 1924)
- ↑ The text in the original language, now illustrated by Flix , was published again in 2014 as IB 1426 in the Insel-Bücherei.
- ↑ The volume appeared unchanged in terms of content with a new volume number and new cover paper as a special edition for the anniversary “100 years Insel-Bücherei”.
- ↑ The volume has only been announced and has not yet been published.