Copyright by Matthew Owen Anderson 2019
The Dissertation Committee for Matthew Owen Anderson Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation:
Bildung and Bilder? Text, Illustration, and Adventure in Popular German Children’s Books of the Early Nineteenth Century
Committee:
Kirsten Belgum, Supervisor
Peter Hess
Kirkland A. Fulk
Michael B. Winship
Bildung and Bilder? Text, Illustration, and Adventure in Popular German Children’s Books of the Early Nineteenth Century
by
Matthew Owen Anderson
Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
The University of Texas at Austin December 2019
Acknowledgements
This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous financial support of the Germanic Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin, and the assistance of substantial research grants from the American Friends of Marbach (AFM) and the Fulbright Commission, which enabled me to conduct the majority of my research on site in Germany from 2017-2018. I am particularly indebted to the archival librarians who helped me during this stage of my research. Dietrich Hakelberg, Nicolai Riedel, and Julia Maas at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv (DLA) in Marbach dedicated a considerable amount of time to helping me locate, label, and haul up carts of uncatalogued adventure novels from the bowels of the archive. They were with me every agonizing meter of the way, yet never once complained. Albeit blessed with a (moderately) more modern call system, Carola Pohlmann and Sigrun Putjenter at the Children and Young People’s Books Division of the Prussian State Library in Berlin were equally vital in helping me gain my footing in the first months of my year in Berlin. Thanks are also due to Julia Benner at the Humbolldt University and Sebastian Schmideler at the University of Leipzig, both of whom read and critiqued early drafts of Chapter 6. Last but not least, I must thank my wife Alicia Zachary-Erickson for her incredible patience and long-distance support during the year I gallivanted across Europe in search of adventure. Thanks Duck! During this extended—and often very lonely—period of intensive research, I was especially grateful for the support of friends in Germany. Alex Kuuskoski and Miriam Heyny came to my rescue during my second month at the DLA in Marbach. In Berlin, I similarly cherished the companionship of Gunnar Franck and Lars Schirrmeister, who helped to keep me grounded during periods of (literal) darkness and despair. Special iv thanks are also due to David Ciarlo, who encouraged and uplifted me during a particularly difficult stage of my dissertation research. I am especially indebted to my advisor Kit Belgum, who was the reason I chose to pursue graduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin in 2012, and the reason I decided to pursue a PhD in 2014. Her constant guidance and support have been the principle red threads throughout my entire doctoral career. In particular, her writing advice has been invaluable to my academic progress and personal Bildung. Thanks are due to the other committee members—Peter Hess, Alex Fulk, and Michael Winship—who have joined me on this considerable reading adventure. By the same token, I would like to thank the other professors who had a hand in steering my dissertation from its earliest stages, particularly Katie Arens and Per Urlaub. Thanks are also due to Terry Belanger and Erin C. Blake at the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School, whose courses on historical book illustration were incredibly helpful to developing the historical vocabulary for my project, and (again) to Kit Belgum and Vance Byrd, who organized and continue to promote historical Visual Cultural Studies through the German Studies Association. I would also like to thank Sabine Hake for her sage advice and for giving me the opportunity to hone my editing skills on other people’s prose at the German Studies Review, and my friend, colleague, and conference roommate John Benjamin, for years of camaraderie and support, and for proofreading this massive document. Finally, I would like to thank my middle school German instructor, Mary Fair, who first inspired a love for the German language that—over seventeen years later—has blossomed into a career. Vielen Dank, Frau Fair!
v
Abstract
Bildung and Bilder? Text, Illustration, and Adventure in Popular German Children’s Books of the Early Nineteenth Century
Matthew Owen Anderson, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2019
Supervisor: Kirsten Belgum
This dissertation explores the impact of graphic innovation on the established book culture of nineteenth-century Germany through an often-overlooked medium: the illustrated youth adventure book. Despite their ubiquity during this time period, these works have received relatively little scholarly attention beyond identification in sweeping, literary historical surveys or presentation in archival exhibition catalogs.
This dissertation approaches illustrated books for young readers in the same way that scholars in the fields of children’s literature and visual cultural studies treat picture books, comic books, and graphic novels: as cultural products that rely on the interplay of two distinct but intrinsically linked semiotic domains, the written word and visual image, to create meaning. Drawing on theoretical insights from the fields of children’s literature, art history, critical bibliography, and—visual cultural studies, it sees the illustrated youth book as a multimodal whole instead of a text that happens to have visuals attached to it.
vi The case studies included in this dissertation highlight the following four, thematically and chronologically overlapping works of German youth adventure in their various guises: Joachim Heinrich Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere (1779/80, trans.
Robinson the Younger), Frederick Marryat’s Masterman Ready (1841), James Fenimore
Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales (trans. Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen, 1845), and Theodor
Dielitz’s Land- und Seebilder (1841-1861, trans. Images of Land and Sea). Each chapter follows a similar structure—moving from pedagogical and historical contexts into textual, visual, and then multimodal analyses—but has a slightly different focus. By focusing on a genre, period, and medium defined by the tension between education
(Bildung) and entertainment, this dissertation specifically seeks to understand the importance of illustration (Bilder) to the development of a central genre of intentional
German youth literature.
vii Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1
Introduction ...... 1
From Villified to Virtuous: Changing Attitudes Towards Adventure ...... 5
Archival Adventures: Finding the Middle Path ...... 9
On Archives and Source Selection ...... 10
Outline of Dissertation ...... 14
CHAPTER 2: DAS ABENTEUERBILD: APPROACHING ADVENTURE THROUGH TEXT AND IMAGE ...... 16
Introduction ...... 16
Defining Historical Youth Literature ...... 17
Pedagogical Red Threads: The Development of Intentional KJL in Germany ...... 20
Late-Eighteenth Century ...... 20
Early-Nineteenth Century ...... 27
Terms of Adventure ...... 32
A Brief Conceptual History of Abenteuer ...... 32
The Challenge of Adventure as Acceptable Youth Reading Material ...... 37
Falling Action? Squaring the Adventure ...... 39
Forming Virtue ...... 40
Based on "True Events" ...... 42
Adventure with a Purpose: A Means to Another End ...... 44
Visual Innovations in the Nineteenth Century ...... 45
viii Re-Viewing Adventure: From Text or Image to Illustrated Book ...... 51
Project Scope ...... 52
General Theoretical Framework ...... 56
Image-Text Dynamics ...... 60
Conclusion ...... 68
CHAPTER 3: AMBIGUOUS ACCENTS: J. H. CAMPE'S ROBINSON THE YOUNGER (ROBINSON DER JÜNGERE) BETWEEN ENLIGHTENMENT AND ADVENTURE (1779- 1848) ...... 69
Introduction ...... 69
Robinson der Jüngere: Adventure as a Platform for Pedagogy ...... 70
Visual Accompaniments: Part of the Program? ...... 80
Robinson der Jüngere from 1779-1816 ...... 82
Robinson der Jüngere from 1816-1848 ...... 90
Robinson der Jüngere from 1848-1870 ...... 94
Conclusion ...... 101
CHAPTER 4: READING READY ROBINSONS: GERMAN ADAPTATIONS OF FREDERICK MARRYAT'S MASTERMAN READY (1841-1887) ...... 104
Introduction ...... 104
Frederick Marryat's Masterman Ready (1841-1842) ...... 106
Marryat the Man ...... 106
Early Works and their Reception ...... 111
Masterman Ready; or the Wreck of the Pacific ...... 114
Affective Archetypes ...... 117
Bourgeois Horizons ...... 123
Xylographic Lenses ...... 126 ix Heinrich Laube's Sigismund Rüstig, der Bremer Steuermann (1843) ...... 132
Franz Hoffmann's Der Neue Robinson (1843) and Later Marryat Adaptations ...... 138
Der Neue Robinson, oder Schiffbruch des Pacific (1843) ...... 139
Subsequent Editions of Masterman Ready in Germany ...... 144
Conclusion ...... 145
CHAPTER 5: ADVENTURE FROM CONCENTRATE: VISUAL INTERVENTIONS IN ADAPTATIONS OF J. F. COOPER'S LEATHERSTOCKING TALES FOR YOUNG GERMANS (1845-1883) ...... 148
Introduction ...... 148
Coopermania: James Fenimore Cooper in the Nineteenth Century ...... 151
From Cooperstown to the World ...... 151
Visual Style and National Acclaim ...... 154
Cooper's Popularity and Reception in Germany as Adult Literature ...... 157
Cooper the Children's Author? ...... 162
Frontier Illustrated ...... 168
Lederstrümpfe aus Stuttgart: Respectable Adult Collections in Conversation with Franz Hoffmann's Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper (1845) ...... 170
J. F. Cooper's Amerikanische Romane (1853-1854) ...... 173
Franz Hoffmann's Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper (1845) ...... 177
Franz Hoffmann's Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper (1867) ...... 182
Adam Stein & Coopers Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen (1868) ...... 185
Excursus: Cooper as German Children's Author Beyond Leatherstocking ...... 190
Conclusion ...... 193
x
CHAPTER 6: IMAGES OF LAND AND SEA (LAND- UND SEEBILDER): EXPERIENCING THE WORLD THROUGH THEODOR DIELITZ'S TRAVEL ANTHOLOGIES FOR YOUNG READERS (1841-1862) ...... 195
Introduction ...... 195
Theodor Dielitz and the Authorization of Adventure ...... 196
Envisioning Images of Land and Sea ...... 197
Exotic Experiences, Virile Virtues, Authentic Adventures ...... 198
Adventure as Extracurricular Supplement ...... 204
Repetitive Reading, Repetitive Viewing ...... 208
Theodor Hosemann and the Bilderfabrik of Winckelmann & Sons ...... 209
Visualized Virtues and Paratextual Provings ...... 212
Moments of Choice, Moments of Truth ...... 213
Posing Paragons, Essentialized Virtues ...... 217
Framing Repeat Exposures ...... 218
Conclusion ...... 221
CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION ...... 224
Biedermeier Adventures ...... 224
Towards an Aesthetic of Immediacy ...... 225
The Spoils of Adventure: Interdisciplinary Contributions ...... 230
Further Adventures ...... 233
Project Limitations ...... 234
Areas for Further Study ...... 236
Final Thoughts ...... 238
xi Appendix ...... 239
Works Cited ...... 326
Vita ...... 338
xii CHAPTER 1
Introduction
INTRODUCTION
In our twenty-first century media landscape, book illustration may seem a rather quaint visual medium. Television, film, video games, and digital art: each of these media is more dynamic and engaging to our contemporary sensibilities. However, in the early nineteenth century, illustrated books and periodicals were the dominant visual medium; for the average middle-class citizen, they were one of very few sources of images available for purchase (Schumacher 31). Books and periodicals were also the primary means for information distribution. Because of this, seemingly small developments in the printing industry during this time had significant impacts on the relationship between image and text, between visual and print culture. Scholars have long noted these incremental shifts: over the past fifty years, entire disciplinary sub-fields have sprung up to analyze picture books, comics, graphic novels, and other multimodal works.
One of the primary results of this nineteenth-century graphic explosion was that the reservoir of European knowledge about the rest of the world grew immensely. As the quantity and availability of this information increased, so, too, did the challenge for authors, publishers, parents, and educators to effectively filter, adapt, and represent it for young readers. Susanne Zantop observes that the economy of global knowledge in pre- colonial nineteenth-century Germany was driven by “a totalizing impulse to amass information, order it synchronically into geographies, diachronically into histories, and 1 vertically into hierarchies of moral and cultural development, and make this structured
information accessible to all strata and ages of the educated bourgeois public” (35). Often
intertwined with these processes of textual (re)organization, new methods of visualization
impacted knowledge dissemination and consumption in the nineteenth century.
The expanding genres of German children’s literature offer particularly vibrant
viewpoints onto these converging developments (Lässig and Weiß 4). This dissertation
explores the impact of graphic innovation on the established book culture of nineteenth-
century Germany through an often-overlooked medium: the illustrated youth adventure
story.1 Despite their ubiquity during this time period, illustrated adventure stories have
received relatively little scholarly attention beyond extensive identification in epochal
literary-historical surveys or visual-historical exhibition catalogues. To address this
oversight, this dissertation approaches illustrated books for young people in the same way
that children’s literary scholars treat picture books and graphic novels: as cultural
products that rely on the interplay of two distinct but intrinsically linked semiotic
domains, the written word and visual image, to create meaning.2 Drawing on theoretical insights from the fields of children’s literature, art history, critical bibliography, and visual cultural studies, it analyzes the illustrated youth adventure story as a unified, multimodal whole instead of a text that happens to have visuals attached to it.
1 While studies exist on the image-text dynamic for exceptional works, most illustrated texts produced for child readers during this period are not known primarily for their visual or formal ingenuity. 2 Though the history of eighteenth and nineteenth-century book illustration in England and France is often held in higher regard by art historians, the German context is perhaps more fruitful when exploring the significance of the image: “Die Buchillustration des 19. Jahrhunderts kann Einsichten vermitteln, was ‘Bild’ in dieser Zeit, im Gegensatz sowohl zur Vergangenheit des 18. Jahrhunderts und früher als auch der darauffolgenden Moderne, für eine Bedeutung hatte” (Timm 10). 2 As stated above, the first half of the nineteenth century is a decisive moment in each of these disciplinary perspectives. In the field of German children’s literature, it marks the emergence of books intentionally produced for a child readership. Historians of illustration have shown how a succession of technical innovations during the same period resulted in the massive increase in the quantity and quality of printed images, one that would peak in the “Golden Age” of illustration around the turn of the twentieth century.
Book historian David Harthan claims that this era of European illustration was historically unique: “never was there a greater interest in illustration of every kind.
Diversity of techniques, the vagaries of literary and popular taste, and an insatiable demand for books, make the nineteenth century the richest period in the history of illustration” (172). Finally, he and other print historians point to the qualitative and quantitative expansion of the publishing industry as evidence for the increasing ubiquity of the illustrated book. In each case, the period from 1780 to 1860 encapsulates a series of paradigmatic shifts that converge in the medium of the illustrated children’s book.
In the German context, the genre of youth adventure stories offers a particularly rich lens through which to view these changes. These books were popular in their time, and reflect one of the most significant cultural tensions informing both the development of children’s literature and nineteenth-century German society: the conflict between the pedagogical desire to promote education and self-enrichment (Bildung) and the commercial imperatives of the growing publishing industry to attract readers by including
3 more entertaining and attractive images (Bilder).3 By focusing on a genre, period, and medium defined by the tension between education (Bildung) and entertainment, this dissertation specifically seeks to understand the importance of illustration (Bilder) to the development of a central genre of intentional German children’s literature.
The dissertation also contributes to a broader understanding of the ever-present cultural dialectics of word and image. Though it draws on a variety of methods from semiotics, critical bibliography, visual cultural studies, and literary studies, it aims to contribute to a larger understanding of the fabric of nineteenth-century German print culture by shuttling, as W. J. T. Mitchell suggests, between the “warp and woof” of word and image. The various patterns of interaction present within illustrated books shed new light on the tensions present in the early stages of children’s literary history and contribute to a more robust understanding of the gamut of relationships between Bilder and Bildung.
The following sections situate the dissertation within existing scholarship on historical youth adventure and book illustration, highlight the importance of my contribution to the fields of children’s literature and visual cultural studies, detail the scope and emphasis of the four case studies at the core of the project, and provide an overview of the work’s overall structure.
3 In his tripartite model of visual meaning, Erwin Panofsky locates the “intrinsic” meaning beneath the more apprehensible “natural” and “conventional” layers. While I prefer to be cautious in attributing such “intrinsic” characteristics of a work of art to specific cultural, national or other forces, on some level, the work of art—or the illustrated book—will invariably be indebted to these factors. 4 FROM VILIFIED TO VIRTUOUS: DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON ADVENTURE
During the early decades of the nineteenth century, the travel narrative became one of the most vibrant canvases for combining Bilder and Bildung in imaginative and informative ways. Susanne Zantop observes that this genre grew to particular prominence in the decades preceding the turn of the nineteenth century: “estimates suggest that while the general book production in Germany doubled between 1770 and 1800, travelogues alone increased by a factor of five” (32). She observes that, despite the relatively slow increase in access to long-distance travel for the middle-classes, the number of “armchair explorers participating vicariously in travels skyrocketed” (32). As a result, the literary market in mid-century Germany was teeming with a variety of overlapping travel narrative sub-genres, each positioning themselves as the prime source of authentic, global knowledge for middle-class readers.
General trends in literary production during the early nineteenth-century directly influenced youth adaptation. In particular, the growing taste for more exciting and more exotic travel narratives—in other words, for adventures—began to supersede the authority of first-hand experience as the primary desideratum among German reading publics. Though eyewitness travel accounts from the likes of Meriwether Lewis and
William Clark, John C. Frémont, or Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied were adapted, published, and widely disseminated in Germanophone Europe as intentional children’s literature,4 their commercial popularity paled in comparison to that of more stimulating
4 For a definition of this term, see Chapter 2 and consult Ewers, Fundamental Concepts of Children’s Literature Research. 5 adventure narratives. As Heinrich Pleticha and others have observed, this trend allowed the colorful figures of desperados and rangers—not eyewitness researcher-explorers—to dominate the perspectives of young Germans on the New World during the middle of the nineteenth century (158).
This shift in focus was a significant new development. Once an eighteenth- century bourgeois bugaboo, the pedagogical and literary status of adventure had changed slowly but dramatically over the span of just a few decades. Klaus-Ulrich Pech’s historical overview of nineteenth-century German children’s literature, “Children and
Youth Literature: From Biedermeier to Realism” (“Kinder- und Jugendliteratur vom
Biedermeier bis zum Realismus”), outlines a paradigmatic shift in the forces guiding the development of children’s book production, from pedagogues to publishers. In his view, the old Enlightenment model of an entertaining and instructive travel literature for young readers gradually disintegrated over the course of the nineteenth-century and was succeeded by a commercialized, literary-aesthetic youth adventure literature. Regarding changes to children’s travel narratives, he claims that this process of disintegration had already reached an advanced stage by the middle of the nineteenth century: “the adventure elements were thrust so forcefully into the foreground that everything pedagogical began to melt into mere entertainment” (282–283). In other words, the long- standing Horatian guiding principle of prodesse et delectare—that a good book should educate and entertain its reader—was only half of what it used to be.
The threat of this imbalance was deeply concerning for mid-century pedagogues, who held long-standing bourgeois anxieties about exposing impressionable youths to the 6 corrosive moral influences of unchecked, impetuous escapism. Yet the greater challenge
of adventure is tied much less to its content than its episodic structure: at its core, an
adventure narrative can be simply defined as a protagonist-centered series of exciting,
action-filled depictions of dangerous situations and their resolutions (Hasubek 7). The
priority given to these experiences—as well as their isolation from a respectable,
bourgeois lifestyle—separates adventure from other travel narrative types.5
Youth adventure stories rose to popular acclaim at a key transitional moment in
German literary history, but one which Pech—echoing the anxieties of eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century pedagogues around the changing mode and mass of child reading—
interprets negatively. For Pech, this era of children’s literary history is marred by the
disintegration of the robust German youth literature of the Enlightenment as a result of
the commercialization, industrialization, and professionalization of the publishing
industry.
The literary-historical long view has been an essential aid at every stage of my
research for this dissertation. However, one of its primary limitations is the tendency to
overlook the shifting content and physical appearance of individual works over time. The
emphasis remains on first editions or—in the rare case that subsequent editions are
mentioned—on extraordinary adaptations, appropriations, or reconfigurations.
This same trend holds for epochal considerations of visual adornment: historians
of nineteenth-century European book illustration typically focus on art prints and the
5 See also Otto Best, Abenteuer – Wonnetraum aus Flucht und Ferne (Adventure – Daydream of Escape and Distance); and Jürgen Fohrmann, Abenteuer und Bürgertum (Adventure and the Bourgeoisie). 7 avant-garde, and often disregard the less impressive images that often accompanied books for children and young people. Popular works such as youth adventure narratives are frequently omitted entirely. Those works that do consider adventure illustration tend to focus on narrow slices of adult literature. For example, David Blewett’s The
Illustration of Robinson Crusoe highlights predominately art editions of the adult text produced in England and France, Literary studies devoted to adventure as children’s literature—particularly to German robinsonades and Native American or Western novels—are often more focused on how such works challenge or contribute to existing national-historical metanarratives than on exploring how they work.
Each of these approaches makes valuable contributions to our understanding of the changing media landscape of early nineteenth-century Germany. The primary impetus for this dissertation was the observation that, despite describing the same—or closely related—objects, they frequently and consistently talk past one another. What they do not provide is an adequate perspective on how these two components—the textual narrative and the visual illustration—intersect to form meaning together.
My purpose here is not to challenge individual disciplinary viewpoints, but to make a case for a more nuanced perspective, one that not only takes individual works at their word but also considers the importance of visual components in contributing to their overall presentation. Rather than assuming that most youth adventures produced between
1780 and 1860 are always already pedagogically or aesthetically compromised by their form, content, and the socioeconomic contexts of their production, this study proceeds from the assumption that they actively make pragmatic compromises between ideal 8 pedagogical values and the shifting institutional and commercial circumstances integral to their effective dissemination. In this way I hope to find a productive middle ground between the wide-angle perspectives of literary and visual histories and the narrow focus of studies of individual works.
Deborah Thacker observes that the future of children’s literature studies lies in its interdisciplinary understanding of surrounding discourses on education, the family, book and publishing history, and media studies (45). This is no different for historical Kinder- und Jugendliteratur (hereafter KJL) in Germany: in order to develop within a “multi- stranded field with relatively weak centralization,” it needs to continue to develop a methodological self-identity that acknowledges its analogues to “adult literature” but is fundamentally open to new forms of critical inquiry beyond the meticulous tendencies of its eccentric archivist forebears (Ewers, Fundamental Concepts 100). This dissertation relies on the painstaking, epochal work from twentieth-century literary-historical surveys as a foundation for the series of four case studies that seek to reconnect and redefine the confluence of pedagogy, genre fiction, and illustration during the early nineteenth century. A more detailed methodological discussion will appear in Chapter 2, but the process and rationale for text selection are outlined below.
ARCHIVAL ADVENTURES: FINDING THE MIDDLE PATH
Finding an appropriate middle ground between the sea of the literary-historical survey and the island of the individual case study was a daunting task. On the one hand, it was important to capture a selection of works and editions that represent the three
9 primary iterations of youth adventure literature for the period: robinsonades, Native American novels, and ethnographic travel descriptions. On the other hand, it was equally important to me that each chapter creates deep and vivid portraits of individual works as they developed over time. In this way, I aimed to avoid merely reproducing the literary- historical perspective with a few more images thrown in. The following section outlines the dissertation’s conceptual development, from graduate school resources to Google Books to German archives.
On Archives and Source Selection
One of the most significant hurdles to completing the foundational research for this dissertation was access to source materials. While local campus archives—e.g., the
University of Texas Libraries, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, and the
Harry Ransom Center—and digitized collections—especially GoogleBooks and
HathiTrust—provided a broad enough basis to develop an outline of the project, they could only provide glimpses of the immense number of editions listed by OCLC
WorldCat. As a further limitation, digitized collections are always constrained by the material holdings from which they were scanned, a factor that severely limits their utility when attempting to retrace and recreate edition histories. For example, most of the volumes available on GoogleBooks were culled from the University of Michigan’s library system. While their collection is extensive, it is by no means complete. Given these parameters, the project as outlined above would have been impossible without direct, sustained engagement with archival collections in Germany.
10 Private archival collections certainly present their own set of challenges,
particularly when it comes to children’s books. As Theodor Brüggemann—himself a
well-known collector of KJL—notes, collectors have a decidedly different relationship to
children’s books than literary scholars: whereas the latter view historical KJL as a set of
texts, the former is concerned with the sensual, material qualities of children’s books
(69). Karl Hobrecker, Arthur Rümann, Walter Benjamin, and Walter Schatzki, the four
most significant collectors of German children’s books, understood their role in different
ways. For example, Karl Hobrecker, whose collections can be found at the University of
Braunschweig and at the University of Frankfurt, viewed children’s books as “significant
cultural assets” that deserved to be spared for public benefit, while art historian Arthur
Rümann sought to preserve the particular, illustrious legacy of early picture books
(Brüggemann 73). In each case, the bibliophilic, rather than the academic, impulses of
these early-twentieth century collectors have had a profound, and not entirely
unproblematic, impact on bibliographies today: their “good” books survive to the
exclusion of other less “collectible” texts.6
In the case of this project, the collector’s drive to assemble exhaustive,
representative corpora proved fortunate. Without the eccentric whims of private
collectors, few exemplars of popular literature would survive to this day. In particular, the
Heinz Neumann Collection of Adventure Literature (Sammlung Heinz Neumann) at the
German Literature Archive (Deutsches Literaturarchiv) in Marbach was a goldmine for
6 Hobrecker admits this tendency in the introduction to his Alte vergessene Kinderbücher (1924), and recognizes the need for a scholarly KJL literary history in order to overcome overly didactic, evaluative criteria that dominate bibliographic works (5). 11 illustrated editions. Although late-century, chromolithographed volumes—particularly
Karl May collections—dominate the collection’s 5,905 volumes, the collection provided a wonderful orientation to the major authors and works of the period. This hands-on orientation was particularly useful when searching the second major archive accessed for this project—the Children’s and Youth Book Collection at the Berlin State Library
(Kinder- und Jugendbuchabteilung der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin). This Berlin collection contains over 200,000 volumes of historical children’s and youth literature, and is the single largest archive of German-language Kinder- und Jugendliteratur in the world.
Despite this expansive catalogue of consulted sources, this dissertation does not claim comprehensive knowledge of every edition of the works presented in Chapters 3–6.
A host of practical considerations prohibits this, not the least of which is the unavoidable fact that many of these works simply perished over time. Most frequently this is the result of being superseded by other, more contemporary works; many others are similarly hidden away in regional archives; and, unfortunately, many that were preserved for decades were inadvertently destroyed through acts of war. This last cause was particularly bitter, as promising searches in the Berlin State Library’s archive catalogue
(StabiKat) were frequently brought to a halt by a single word in the catalogue entry:
Kriegsverlust.
Practical concerns such as these necessarily influenced the ultimate course of each case study, yet while they determined which editions are featured, they had little effect on which works were chosen for Chapters 3–6. The foundational works of Theodor
Brüggemann, Reiner Wild, and especially Klaus Doderer were exceptional guides to 12 choosing a representative sample of works from this period. A multitude of works presented themselves as strong candidates for consideration, and in the course of my research it became ever more apparent that even more could be added.
Chapter 2 provides a more detailed account of my selection criteria, but they may be briefly summed up here. First, I only wanted to consider significant examples of intentional German youth travel adventure – that is, works that were prominent in both
KJL histories and had demonstrable, sustained popularity over time in Germanophone
Europe (measured by editions). The narrative’s national point of origin played no role in this—I was and am interested in what was popular, not what conveniently fits into pre- existing, national-historical narratives. Alongside this, I only considered works that I could access through digital resources or directly in the archive. Finally, the works had to be illustrated.
The case studies included in this dissertation highlight the following four, thematically and chronologically overlapping works of German youth adventure in their various guises: Joachim Heinrich Campe’s Robinson the Younger (Robinson der Jüngere,
1779/80), Frederick Marryat’s Masterman Ready (1841), James Fenimore Cooper’s
Leatherstocking Tales (Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen, 1845), and Theodor Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea (Land- und Seebilder, 1841–1861). Each chapter follows a similar structure—moving from pedagogical and historical contexts into textual, visual, and then multimodal analyses—but has a slightly different focus. The broad contours of each case study, as well as their specific emphases, are outlined below.
13 OUTLINE OF DISSERTATION
The dissertation begins with an overview of the literature on nineteenth-century
German youth adventure, outlines a methodological approach to reading both text and image as co-conspirators in the author’s pedagogical and literary aims, and then explores these multimodal intersections in four case studies. Immediately following this
Introduction, Chapter 2—Das Abenteuerbild: Approaching Adventure through Text and
Image —provides historical background for the subsequent case studies. Following this historical background, it situates the dissertation within current perspectives from the fields of children’s literature, literary history, and the history of the book; and introduces the primary theoretical concepts and analytic methods that will be employed in the subsequent case studies.
Having established this framework, Chapters 3–6 present four case studies that explore and compare editions of illustrated adventures. They are presented in rough chronological order, but—both by design and given the overlapping nature of their editions histories—a reader interested in a strictly chronological history of these works will be disappointed. Instead, they attempt to give a representational account of the different types of adventure narrative that grew to prominence during this period. Chapter
3 introduces the fledgling genre through Johann Heinrich Campe’s Robinson der
Jüngere, the most successful German adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and arguably the first work of intentional German children’s literature ever written. Particular attention is given to the tension between Campe’s tightly crafted pedagogical program and its visual interpretations. The insular thread is picked up in Chapter 4, which traces 14 the robinsonade through German translations of Frederick Marryat’s Masterman Ready.
This novel seeks to unmoor the shipwreck narrative from its indebtedness to the philosophical novel and anchor it more firmly in mid-century maritime reality, an aim openly avowed by its author, himself a former captain in the British Navy. His bona fides as an eyewitness adventurer challenged the hegemony of pedagogues in creating children’s books and lent additional credibility to his self-drawn illustrations. In a similar vein, Chapter 5 contrasts adult and youth adaptations of another authoritative
“eyewitness” source: James Fenimore Cooper. German adaptations of his historical- mythical Leatherstocking Tales quickly became the inspiration for generations of imitators – even though they frequently bore little textual or visual similarity to their source material. Chapter 6 completes the set by looking at a different, but much more ubiquitous mode of consuming adventure – the abridged episodes of adventure anthologies. Theodor Dielitz’s Land- und Seebilder cannibalizes many of the most popular adventure stories of the time and re-writes them as a series of bite-sized, chromolithographed episodes carefully retailored for youth consumption.
Following these individual studies, Chapter 7 returns to the central question of
Bilder and Bildung as it appears in each. It also evaluates the overall contribution of the dissertation to the fields of children’s literature, visual culture, and book history; acknowledges some of the practical and methodological pitfalls; and provides a brief consideration of possible avenues for future study.
15 CHAPTER 2
Das Abenteuerbild: Approaching Adventure through Text and Image
INTRODUCTION
This chapter contextualizes this dissertation within existing scholarship on historical youth adventure literature in Germany, emphasizes its potential contributions, and outlines its selection rationale and methodological framework. It begins by defining key terms and providing an overview of standard disciplinary narratives for this period. The first section delineates the scope and contours of intentional youth literature in German-speaking Europe, and discusses the necessity of focusing on the production— and not the reception—of these works. Drawing on descriptive, historical surveys by Otto Brunken and Bettina Hurrelmann, Theodor Brüggemann and Hans-Heino Ewers, and Klaus Ulrich Pech, the second part sketches the development of intentional youth literature in Germanophone Europe through the mid-nineteenth century, and highlights the centrality of the adventure genre. This discussion foregrounds a subsequent definition and discussion of youth adventure as a particularly intractable challenge for KJL authors. It also provides a typology of common narrative strategies used to “contain” adventure. Beginning with the inherent visuality of adventure, I then present a standard history of illustration and visual innovation during the same period. This section concludes by highlighting the lack of contact between literary and visual histories, and discusses the necessity for new, interdisciplinary approaches that bridge this gap. The first half of this chapter positions the dissertation relative to previous scholarship. The second half outlines the dissertation’s scope, defines its methodological approach to reading, situating, and comparing images, acknowledges its limitations, and 16 outlines its potential contributions to the fields of German children’s literature, critical bibliography, and visual cultural studies.
DEFINING HISTORICAL YOUTH LITERATURE
This dissertation concerns historical youth literature in Germany, but what exactly does that mean? The field of children’s literature presumes a generally accepted definition and delimitation of its object of study, and twenty-first century authors, publishers, and bookstores typically divide children’s literature into specific age and gender demographics set on a developmental spectrum, from pre-literate or early readers to teenagers. In the German context, both children’s book production and KJL scholarship also exhibit this differentiation. How useful is this when applied to the past?
The generic divisions familiar to twenty-first century readers expanded gradually over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Many of the detailed generic distinctions taken for granted today are unhelpful and often misleading when applied to historical children’s literature prior to 1900. Additionally, many works considered non- fictional today—for example, encyclopedias—once constituted a large portion of the leisure-time reading material enjoyed by children in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Brüggemann and Ewers 49). Finally, the paucity of reliable data on the actual readership and popularity of children’s books prior to the twentieth century also makes any definition based on verifiable reading trends difficult. For these reasons, the question
17 of what to include in any definition of historical youth or children’s literature remains
challenging.
Hans-Heino Ewers, an expert on historical children’s literature, offers three
imperfect approaches to delimiting the corpus of youth and children’s books: actual,
intentional, and specific children’s literature.7 The first and broadest category of actual children’s literature (eigentliche KJL) encompasses all books that children actually read.
This corpus privileges real-world usage over any implied or intended audience—if a child has read it, then the book can be classified as actual children’s literature.
By contrast, the second category, intentional children’s literature (intentionale
KJL) describes the “totality of texts or works that are aimed at children and young people as addressees” (Fundamental Concepts 18). Intentional children’s literature covers everything from classroom curricula and etiquette manuals to picture books and fantasy novels—everything that is demonstrably addressed to an implied child readership. As
Ewers notes, it can be difficult to distinguish between school and leisure reading— especially during long periods of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when “nearly all reading matter was of a mainly didactic nature” (18). For this reason, intentional children’s literature is often further limited to those texts primarily read as a leisure activity—thereby excluding schoolbooks and other “compulsory” forms of reading.8
7 In Kinderliteratur, Kanonbildung und literarische Wertung, Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer advances a similar distinction between intentional and specific children’s literature. She also notes that the term (and the canon of children’s literature) typically does not include works written by children, only those written by adults for a child audience (19). 8 While the question of education and entertainment within the specific children’s book is central to this study, the location of consumption will not be a relevant factor in the overall analysis. 18 The third and final category of specific children’s literature (spezifische KJL) is a subset of intentional children’s literature, with the distinction that is conceived for and read by solely child readers. It excludes works that were initially intended for another audience, such as adaptations, excerpted or anthologized books, or those that were later appropriated as suitable for children (i.e., the folk ballads, poems, or fairy tales advocated as children’s literature by Romantics such as Ludwig Tieck). In Ewer’s definition, specific children’s literature circumscribes “all texts or works which, on their first appearance (their first publication) were demonstrably addressed to children and young people” (18). This corpus most neatly corresponds to a commonsense definition of children’s literature.
The corpora of actual and specific children’s literature are both untenable for this project, albeit for different reasons. Actual children’s literature is notoriously difficult to pin down during this period: excepting the epistolary anecdotes of famous literati such as
Goethe or Marx, youth reading habits are not recorded for the public. Those sources of data that are accessible are unreliable at best: records from lending libraries
(Leihbibliotheken) do not necessarily indicate actual child reading, while book sales are better indicators of parental (purchaser) preferences than those of their children. Absent concrete, verifiable documentation of reading practices, it is difficult to recreate actual historical youth reading habits.
Specific children’s literature presents a different problem: it brackets children’s literature from outside influences—in particular from adult literature. As will be discussed in the following section on KJL history, early KJL authors borrowed 19 extensively from the popular adult literary genres of the day. In particular, they abridged,
adapted, and repurposed adult travel narratives from a variety of national and
international sources. Even though all of the editions considered in this dissertation are
conceived for a youth readership, each case study draws on complex literary heritages
that extend beyond the narrow scope of specific children’s literature.
The most useful of Ewer’s categories for this dissertation is intentional children’s
literature, or works that were intended for, but not limited to, a child readership. This is
the only corpus to highlight adaptations, appropriations, excerpts, and other various
derivations and borrowings from other genres—each of which plays a crucial role in the development of KJL in the late-eighteenth to early-nineteenth centuries. This is particularly true for the genre of adventure stories. The following section traces the development of intentional KJL in German-speaking Europe from 1770 to 1860.
PEDAGOGICAL RED THREADS: THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTENTIONAL KJL IN
GERMANY
Late Eighteenth Century
Examples of actual KJL date back as far as 1215 with Thomasin von Zirclaere’s
The Romance Stranger (Der Wälsche Gast, an etiquette manual for young courtiers), but
KJL histories typically identify the late eighteenth century as the beginning of intentional
20 children’s book production in Germany.9 The spread of Enlightenment platforms for individual and social improvement and a growing literary market were both necessary conditions for this development. However, foundational works in the field of KJL studies such as Phillipe Ariès’s Centuries of Childhood, Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of
Enchantment, and Jacqueline Rose’s The Case of Peter Pan, or the Impossibility of
Children’s Fiction highlight the new concept of childhood that emerged during this era as the most significant factor for the development of intentional children’s literature.
The French historian Philippe Ariès first advanced the idea that childhood was a bourgeois construct in his 1962 book, Centuries of Childhood. Ariès’s central claim is that the first coherent concept of childhood developed as an integral part of the eighteenth century bourgeois family’s location as a private, emotional enclave within early industrial society (413). The arenas of the family and the school framed the experience of the bourgeois child, construed primarily as an emotionally and socially immature adult in need of discipline and instruction. However, as formal schooling was not available to all, the family—especially the paterfamilias—took on greater responsibility as the primary site for the general education and self-formation (Bildung) of the next generation.
Responding to this growing desire, eighteenth-century authors sought to provide parents with the tools and guidance to be successful as educators. To this end, key members of the Philanthropist Movement composed pedagogical texts with explicit
9 This is borne out in most literary histories. For more details, see general works such as Reiner Wild, Geschichte der deutschen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, and Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer (et al.), Kinder- und Jugendliteratur: Eine Einführung; as well as specific volumes on early children’s books, such as Heinz Wegehaupt (et al.), Alte deutsche Kinderbücher. Bibliographie 1507–1850 or Otto Brunken (et al.), Handbuch zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur von 1800–1850. 21 guidelines for their use, fulfilling the role of author and critic simultaneously. These included Johann Bernhard Basedow, who in 1774 both published the Elementarwerk and founded the Philanthropinum in Dessau with Christian Heinrich Wolke; Friedrich
Eberhard von Rochow, author of the first textbook (Volksschulbuch), Der Kinderfreund, in 1776; and Joachim Heinrich Campe—Basedow’s short-term successor and the most successful of the Philanthropists (Baumgärtner and Pleticha 119). Their educational aims are neatly summed up in the preface to Campe’s Robinson the Younger (Robinson der
Jüngere): children should be given books that train pragmatic social competences, impart real knowledge, and encourage the development of pious, God-fearing sentiments
(Robinson der Jüngere, 1981, 5–7). It follows that, when writing and evaluating books for children, pioneers such as Campe were primarily concerned with a publication’s practical, functional-educational ability to prepare a child for entrance into adult society
(Brüggemann and Ewers 26, 34).
However, as much as early KJL books can be seen as an admirable extension of a larger vision for European Enlightenment, their emphasis on practical and factual knowledge should also be seen as a direct response to commercial trends. Children,
Campe argued, should not be reading exciting, racy, or otherwise unwholesome “adult” literature, but should be appropriately socialized into proper modes of reading through controlled exposure to age-appropriate texts. Ideally, the content of their reading material should build directly upon the real-life, domestic experiences of the “educated classes” and prepare them for successful lives within their expectations (Hurrelmann 43). Three interrelated threats to this transition emerge in the literature from this period: first, the 22 unhealthy addiction to extensive reading (variously described as Lesewut or Lesesucht) that afflicted all reading publics; second, the disregard for factual veracity in many popular genres; and third, the increasing commodification of the book industry.
The culminating bibliomania debate (Lesesuchtdebatte) of the 1790s brought into sharp focus a shift in reading practices that had developed in the second half of the eighteenth century. Rolf Engelsing characterizes the Lesesuchtdebatte as a struggle to come to terms with the change from intensive to extensive reading tendencies, a shift that threatened entrenched cultural and religious norms. For example, rote learning through group oration—a tradition often related to the communal aspect of prayer—was gradually overtaken by a new mode of individual, silent reading (Engelsing 66; Lässig and Weiß
14). The disembodiment and desocialization of reading practices gave the naïve child imagination free rein, and the private experience of silent reading offered the troubling potential for unregulated affective attachment (Schön 118, 121; Hasubek 7). Another major concern was of quantity eclipsing quality: whereas pupils had previously committed a handful of canonical texts to memory, the one-time consumption of dozens if not hundreds of books increasingly became the norm (Langenbucher 66; Brüggemann and Ewers 13). To sum up the concerns over reading, Martha Woodmansee notes that
“common to all of this writing on reading is the conviction that too many readers were reading too many of the wrong books for the wrong reasons and with altogether the wrong results” (207). The respectable bourgeois citizen, if he ever read, was meant to affirm that which he already knew to be true—not to entertain flights of fancy (Engelsing
182). This was especially applicable to impressionable young readers. 23 However, while critics’ concerns generally centered on the shift from intensive to extensive modes of reading, they were divided as to how to address that issue.
Conservative voices, such as Johann Georg Heinzmann or J. R. G. Beyer, advocated systematic, state-controlled regulation of supply to restrict the flow of popular literature to new reading publics. By contrast, progressive thinkers such as Johann Adam Bergk or
Immanuel Kant sought to influence reader demand by advocating new, critical modes of reading—in some ways a return to the close, intensive reading practices threatened by the explosion of the literary market. In a growing, consumer-literary economy, stimulating and adventurous “page-turners” were seen as emblematic of this new mode of reading.
The Germanist Matt Erlin sees the Lesesuchtdebatte as one aspect of a “much broader confrontation with an emerging commercial society” (146). He relates concerns about excessive reading to a growing, general anxiety that excessive consumption would have destabilizing effects on the individual subject. Within this framework, Erlin observes that eighteenth-century thinkers like Bergk, Fichte, and Büsch organize acceptable modes of surplus consumption around concepts like taste, comfort, or convenience that contribute to a “socially sanctioned, rationally pursued project of self- cultivation” (160). Rather than stigmatizing this peculiar form of addiction, Campe and other savvy authors began considering outlets for repurposing alarming, extensive reading practices to productive, intensive ends.
In particular, the growing popularity of robinsonades gave youth authors pause.
The greatest challenge for early KJL authors was thus to craft engaging and exciting works that could compete commercially with the flood of exciting and adventurous adult 24 travel stories on the market—without compromising their core pedagogical principles.
Joachim Heinrich Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere (1779/80), a pedagogical adaptation of
Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), is the most successful attempt to achieve this balance. KJL histories often identify this work as the first prominent example of intentional children’s literature in Germany.10
Campe derived both his source material and pedagogical strategy directly from
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s influential treatise on education, Émile, which advocated
Robinson Crusoe as the best substitute for unmediated, experiential learning.11 In Émile,
Rousseau claims that the combination of imagination and utility demonstrated in Defoe’s
Robinson will instill in the child reader an insatiable desire for practical knowledge: “the child, in a hurry to set up a storehouse for his island, will be more ardent for learning than is the master for teaching. He will want to know all that is useful, and he will want to know only that” (185). In the preface to Robinson der Jüngere, Campe outlines similar aims: “first of all, I wanted to engage my young readers in as pleasant a way as I could, because I knew that the hearts of children are never as open to useful instruction as when
10 As Kit Belgum notes in “New Words and the New World: Langauge and the Transnational Legacy of Joachim Heinrich Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere,” Campe’s Robinson was incredibly successful outside of Germany, in large part due to its application as a highly-contextualized, foreign language primer. 11 It is debatable whether Rousseau’s Émile is meant to be the basis for a pedagogy of natural education. For example, Peter Tremp sees Émile predominately as a model for human development (Menschsein), not as the foundation for a concrete educational program. In his book, Rousseaus Émile als Experiment der Natur und Wunder der Erziehung, Tremp reads the transformation of medieval to modern conceptions of childhood as a progressive glorification of childhood and the child. In this view, Émile elevates childhood to the level of a natural principle, thereby transferring the moral-religious status of the child to the (for the Enlightenment) even more essential domain of nature. The philosophical status gained for childhood by this transfer, Tremp argues, results in subsequent gains for pedagogy: the child learner, the adult teacher, and the activity of learning become the focal lens through which childhood and the child are understood. 25 they are amused” (Robinson der Jüngere, 1981, 5).12 His focus remains on natural
education, that is, on presenting as much “elementary knowledge” (elementarische
Kenntnisse) and as many “true obects” (wahre Gegenstände) as possible, so that child
readers may have “many natural opportunities to form pious, God-fearing sentiments”
(6).13 Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere and subsequent adapations—often dubbed pedagogical robinsonades—follow Rousseau’s recommendation and seek to use fantasy to entice child readers towards internalizing Enlightenment values.
Despite the sustained success of Campe’s Robinson, the successful integration— or infiltration—of educational aims into entertaining genres eluded most of his immediate contemporaries. Direct continuations such as Luise Hölder’s Robinson the Younger’s
Return to his Island in the Company of his Children (Rückreise Robinsons des Jüngeren nach seinem Eilande in Begleitung seiner Kinder, 1821) or Christoph Hildebrandt’s
Robinson’s Last Days (Robinson’s letzte Tage, 1846) appear particularly wooden.
However, while some observe that none of Campe’s imitators attain the “complexity of
Defoe’s model,” the same goes for other early KJL authors trying to tap into the commercial success of cheap adventure stories (Liebs 207).14 By the turn of the century,
similar stories had emerged to take advantage of Campe’s popularity, and continued to
enjoy success well into the nineteenth century.
12 “erstlich wollte ich meine jungen Leser auf eine so angenehme Weise unterhalten, als es mir möglich wäre; weil ich wußte, daß die Herzen der Kinder sich jedem nützlichen Unterrichte nicht lieber öffnen, als wenn sie vergnügt sind” (5). 13 “recht viele natürliche Anlässe zu frommen, gottesfürchtigen Empfindungen dadurch hervorwüchsen” (6). 14 “…die Komplexität des Defoeschen Modells in keiner Bearbeitung wieder erreicht wird” (207). 26 Early Nineteenth Century
The history of German KJL in the first half of the nineteenth century can be read
as both a continuation of the prevailing publishing trends of the Enlightenment, and a
contrast to the particular aims, tenor, and scope of that era’s particular project of Bildung.
On the one hand, the popularity of adventure stories continued to grow along with the rest
of KJL production relative to the overall literary market. Some estimate that, between
1800 and 1850, KJL grew to encompass between three to five percent of the total literary
production in Germany. In more concrete terms, between 11,000 and 13,000 KJL titles
were produced during this time span (Pech 98). However, this increase in volume was
also accompanied by a steady flow of the same types of travel and adventure literature
that were at the center of the Lesesuchtdebatte, an indication that “pedagogical
soundness” was not always the foremost concern of KJL purchasers.
Concrete didactic strategies remained constant as the nineteenth century progressed. What changed was not their centrality, but rather their specific aims, tenor, and scope. Romantics such as Ludwig Tieck no longer viewed the child as a blank slate to be inscribed by knowledge, but rather as an emotional, imaginative, animistic, impressionable, and intensely credulous being (Ewers, “Romantik” 97). Around the turn of the century, the epistemological foundation of Bildung similarly moved away from the empirically driven accumulation of facts and the development of rational faculties, and
was replaced by a Romantic model that privileged the inward-looking, emotional
development of self-knowledge vis-à-vis nature over pure reason. Myth, literature and
27 poetry became important sources for self-realization, and poets and pedagogues
advocated folk and fairy tales as ideal children’s reading.15
This shift in publishing trends did not, however, have an immediate effect on the
opinions of those recommending children’s books to a non-specialist audience. The
Volksschule grew in influence throughout the early nineteenth century, and the evaluation
of KJL became even more firmly the enterprise of teachers, theologians, and amateur
critics who reviewed and recommended children’s publications in extensive catalogues
and at book fairs (Buchmessen)– directing parents toward the best children’s books.16
August Hermann Niemeyer’s Principles of Education and Instruction (Grundsätze der
Erziehung und des Unterrichts, 1796) or Friedrich Heinrich Christian Schwarz’s Manual
of Educational and Instructional Doctrine (Lehrbuch der Erziehungs- und
Unterrichtslehre, 1805) furnished this new class of adult mediators with reliable
pedagogical guidelines for home use (Brunken et al. 59). By and large, these perspectives
remained indebted to the specific educational programs of the Philanthropists.
While KJL trends tended to follow—rather than guide—adult-literary production,
the rapid development of the literary market during the early nineteenth century
dramatically affected the scope, quality, and tenor of publications for children. As
demand for morally fibrous and entertaining adventures grew, publishing houses began
15 The Romantics’ insistence on Volkspoesie as the natural source for children’s texts did contribute to the sensational popularity of folk- and fairy tale stories and the beginnings of an increasing literariness within KJL genres, but their evaluative criteria (which were typically uninterested in questions of pragmatic, institutional pedagogy and thus rarely interacted with actual KJL writers) were generally abandoned in favor of conventional, social norms during the conservative cultural turn of the Biedermeier Era. 16 The contemporary study of KJL in library science programs can be viewed as an indirect successor to this catalogue and review tradition, whereas KJL studies in education programs are more directly indebted to the pedagogical impulses of the eighteenth century. 28 hiring full-time employees, so-called Vielschreiber, to churn out children’s books. Often
poor teachers (Volksschullehrer), these writers were the first to earn a living solely from
producing children’s stories—earlier children’s writers had earned their keep through
other means.17 Paid for the quantity of their annual publications, they typically produced
inexpensive variations of moral stories (Moralgeschichten) or robinsonades that
borrowed the successful formula of bestselling works such as Campe’s Robinson der
Jüngere (Pech 139). Like Gustav Nieritz’s Sächsischer Volkskalender (1842–1850),
many of these were compiled and released annually for the whole family. The extreme
economic pressure to produce high quantities of children’s books led to criticism of the
“Fabriktätigkeit” of publishing houses (Brunken et al. 89). Thus while some exceptional
and prolific Vielschreiber such as Gustav Nieritz or Franz Hoffmann made significant
contributions to the history of KJL (see, for example, discussions of Hoffmann’s
adaptations in Chapters 4 and 5), most of the works produced in in the middle decades of
the nineteenth century became more and more influenced by commercial rather than
pedagogical motives.
During this time, the genre of adventure literature (Abenteuerliteratur) grew to
even greater prominence within KJL. According to Klaus Ulrich Pech, nineteenth-century
transport and production technologies helped many of the long-standing genres of travel
writing redefine themselves as a repository for exciting and iconic images of exotic flora
and fauna (154). Although non-fictional travel writing persists throughout the nineteenth
17 Even so, their income was meager—Brunken et al. estimate that children’s writers were paid up to 80% less per book than contemporary authors writing for an adult audience (89). 29 century, the overwhelming tendency is a move away from descriptive travel writing
(Reisebeschreibung) to adventurous travel story (abenteuerliche Reiseerzählung) and eventually travel adventure (Reiseabenteur) (155). Taken as a continuous trend, the late- century endpoint of this narrative genre is the adventure novel (Abenteuerroman), which culminated in Karl May’s Winnetou series of Native American stories about the fictional
Apache prince and his German blood brother, Old Shatterhand.18
May’s works were inspired by generations of authors who had blended descriptive travel writing with adventure and ethnographic elements in more subtle ways.
Some of the most popular examples in German-speaking Europe include robinsonades like Johann Wyß’s The Swiss Family Robinson (Der Schweizerische Robinson, 1812) or
Frederick Marryat’s Masterman Ready (trans. Heinrich Laube as Sigismünd Rüstig,
1843); North American novels such as James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales
(trans. Franz Hoffmann as Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen, 1845), Friedrich Gerstäcker’s The
Arkansas Regulators (Die Regulatoren in Arkansas, 1845), Charles Sealsfield’s The
Bloody Cabin (Das blutige Blockhaus, 1834), and Gabriel Ferry’s The Wood Ranger (Le
Coureur de Bois, 1850, trans. Der Waldläufer, 1857); and serialized travel anthologies like Theodor Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea (Land- und Seebilder, 1841–1861).
Many of these ethnographic adventure narratives borrowed directly from the same adult literary genres that Campe and others had derided in the late eighteenth century. As
Pech notes, an educated bourgeoisie (Bildungsbürgertum) that had previously relied on travel writing as a prestige-building genre and means of distinguishing itself from the
18 “Der abenteuerliche Reisebericht leitet über zum exotischen Abenteuerbuch” (Pech 222). 30 lower classes abandoned travel adventure in favor of more respectable literary genres. As a result, the latter gradually became an integral component of this era’s KJL. For child readers, access to a great “reservoir of images” provided them with a chance to escape from the mundane and the domestic foci of much of this era’s literature (Pech 158–159).
Thus while this genre no longer filled a need for its adult public, it became incredibly desirable—if not pedagogically valuable—to young readers.
By the middle of the century, the pedagogical emphasis of this genre of children’s books had receded far into the background of both the writer’s concerns and the reader’s horizon of expectations. The most important feature became the commercial allure of adventure. While many of the features of eighteenth-century KJL were upheld throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, the Enlightenment strategy of turning tempting travel scenarios toward pedagogical ends was abandoned in favor of steering them toward entertainment. The early history of German KJL is often presented as the gradual capitulation of pedagogical to commercial interests: Campe’s late eighteenth-century attempt to use the child reader’s pleasure as a means to teach is ultimately supplanted by commercial motives that instead privileged exciting, often visually stimulating stories.
The following section will present a conceptual history of adventure, accentuate the inherent challenges it presents for a bourgeois youth readership, and highlight the most common narrative strategies used to bend it toward useful ends.
31 TERMS OF ADVENTURE
A Brief Conceptual and Generic History of Abenteuer
Defining adventure (Abenteuer) can be a challenging task. Twenty-first century reference works illustrate how broadly the term is currently used. For example, the first, and most detailed definition of Abenteuer to be found in the current (2019) Duden Online dictionary emphasizes excitement, danger, and a break from the status quo: Abenteuer is a “dangerous situation connected to an unusual, exciting event that one must survive through daring” (“Abenteuer”).19 This definition also suggests that a particular trait is necessary to survive an Abenteuer—daring (Wagemut). Further definitions illustrate how the term has been semantically extended to cover any unusual, exciting experience—
“außergewöhnliches, erregendes Erlebnis”—or, of comparable breadth, any sort of risky business—a “riskantes Unternehmen” (“Abenteuer”). Despite its current semantic elasticity, the concept of Abenteuer has specific historical roots and consistently negative connotations, both of which will be explored below.
In his book, Adventure—Daydream of Escape and Distance. History and Meaning
(Abenteuer—Wonnetraum aus Flucht und Ferne. Geschichte und Deutung), Otto Best presents an extensive diachronic analysis of Abenteuer in the German context. In the introduction to his historical-philological survey of the concept, Best succinctly describes it in negative terms: Abenteuer is a “step outside of the order of things, [a moving
19 “…mit einem außergewöhnlichen, erregenden Geschehen verbundene gefahrvolle Situation, die jmd. mit Wagemut zu bestehen hat” (“Abenteuer”) 32 beyond] what has been passed down, validated, and established” (9).20 Abenteuer is
rarely a positive concept: it is almost always defined in opposition to the normative
structures it has abandoned. Convention, normalcy, order, safety, and security are perhaps
the most commonly used antonyms used to delineate the semantic texture of Abenteuer.
As an event, it takes on a similar negative aspect: always unplanned and
spontaneous, it is a product of chance that stands in stark opposition to predictable, well-
ordered normalcy. It is an “unplanned occurrence” (ungeplantes Ereignis) that has no
discernible connection to the past, the future, or any established way of being (Best 19).
From this perspective, Abenteuer represents much more than mere unconventionality or
quirkiness: it carries with it strong shades of physical, moral, and social peril. To borrow
two of Best’s analogies, “the adventure is related to order as a comet is related to the
solar system,” or “as the law, the maxim [is related to] pure coincidence” (19).21 It is a synonym for chaos and transgression, an existential risk with unforeseen consequences.
The element of risk is historically constitutive. According to Best, in the High
Middle Ages, the term adventurer began to be used outside the chivalric context: it could
(still) refer to a knight-errant, who rides forth on “chivalric quests” (ritterliche Wagnisse) or a “travelling merchant” (umherziehender Kaufmann) or “jewel trader”
(Juwelenhändler) (42). What united the aristocratic and commercial experiences was the shared element of risk. For merchants, Abenteuer was closely connected to the prospect of failure: “…in the bourgeois world there is little room for risk. If [a risky venture] is
20 “Abenteuer bedeutet ein Schritt aus der Ordnung, dem Überlieferten, Verbürgten, Festgefügten” (9). 21 “Das Abenteuer verhält sich zur Ordnung wie der Meteor zum Sternensystem. Oder wie das Gesetz, die Regel, zum Zufall” (19). 33 nevertheless undertaken, then it is an adventure” (43).22 While the daredevil merchant might profit from risky enterprises, he is a danger to society and his actions may have unplanned, unpredictable, and even deadly consequences for the established order.
These negative connotations reached a high point for the burgeoning bourgeoisie in the eighteenth century. For a fragile social class seeking to secure a central position within shifting social and political structures, creating and policing normative boundaries was a vital activity. As progressive economic, political, and social forays were all risk- laden, the central concern was managing and avoiding danger by cleaving to established behaviors: in other words, by avoiding adventure. One of the central characteristics of the
Abenteurer—cockiness, carelessness, and flippancy—is rooted precisely in a failure to recognize the risks of abandoning the stable world (heile Welt) of responsible, conventional behavior. The size and scope of the ensuing peril is directly proportional to the adventurer’s distance from the heile Welt of bourgeois order (Steinbrink 57). In Best’s words, Abenteuer has such an anti-normative character that is completely incompatible with the cultural horizons of a bourgeois existence: “adventurousness and the bourgeois lifestyle are mutually exclusive” (10).23 In short, for Best the concept of Abenteuer
implies a rejection of bourgeois ideals.
Specifically, Abenteuer is often viewed as antithetical to the central bourgeois
virtue of industry. As Alfred Baumgärtner notes, the adventurer is “a person who is thrust
into situations in which he can and must confront the unexpected and the dangerous with
22 “In der Welt des Bürgers bleibt wenig Raum für Risiko. Wird es dennoch eingegangen, dann ist es Abenteuer” (43). 23 “Abenteuerlichkeit und Bürgerlichkeit schließen einander aus” (10). 34 all of the strength that he can muster; and in which the outcome of such encounters is by no means predetermined” (220).24 The virtues required to survive these encounters— steadfastness, daring, and a clear head—are admirable, but they rely too much on fortune to build a solid foundation for a life. The proactive bourgeois man navigates the obstacles of life through rational action, while the inherently reactive adventurer must always rely on fortune to survive. In turn, young people were not expected to cultivate private interests or desires outside of the working world – the practical purpose of education was to prepare the child for adult life (Brunken, Hurrelmann and Pech 81). Consequently, work is often invoked as a panacea for any problem, grave danger looms when the young bourgeois man substitutes adventure25 for hard work as his modus operandi in the world
(Pohlmann 90).
The generally negative connotation of Abenteuer persisted into the nineteenth century. For example, the 1854 edition of Grimm’s German Dictionary (Deutsches
Wörterbuch) allows for more conceptual wiggle-room, but also accentuates danger:
“adventure is constantly connected to an impression of an unusual, outlandish, and unsafe incident or risk,” but can properly describe “not only…a difficult, formidable, [or]
24 “Der Abenteurer ist ein Mensch, der sich in Situationen begibt, in denen ihm das Unerwartete, Gefahrvolle, Anspannung aller Kräfte Verlangende begegnen kann, ja muß, und der Ausgang solcher Begegnungen durchaus offen ist” (Baumgärtner 220). 25 For Enlightenment pedagogues, adventure and Schwärmerei were equally damnable attitudes. Johann Christoph Adelung defines Schwärmerei in very similar terms: it is “ein ‘Synonym für die Fertigkeit, verworrene und undeutliche Vorstellungen zum Bestimmungsgrund von Vorstellungen und Handlungen zu machen’” (62). The underlying fear is not of the individual episode, but of an unconventional life. 35 unfortunate [risk or venture], but also a respectable and welcome one” (27).26 The definition in Meyers Konversations-Lexikon from 1874 similarly accentuates the incongruity of adventure and the adventurous with the normal order of things:
These days one tends to understand under the term adventure especially an unusual occurrence that does not fit into the current order of things, or a wonderful or foolish venture. Accordingly, the term adventurous refers to everything that proceeds from a debauched, unrestrained fantasy or from an overflowing, willful drive; and lacks not only an ethically sound purpose, but is undertaken without prudent consideration (32).27
This preoccupation with the incompatibility of adventure and the “good life” informed youth literature. KJL authors in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries were not concerned for the wellbeing of mercenaries, merchant marines, and other actual adventurers, but instead for members of the younger generation who, in their naivety, might mistake such figures for role models. This fear features prominently in eighteenth and nineteenth-century discussions on bibliomania, and continued to have a strong influence on text selection and adaptation philosophies amongst KJL throughout the entire historical period under consideration here. In sum, Abenteuer presents an array
26 “Mit diesem abenteuer verknüpft sich stets die vorstellung eines ungewöhnlichen, seltsamen, unsichern ereignisses oder wagnisses, nicht nur eines schweren, ungeheuern, unglücklichen, sondern auch artigen und erwünschten” (Grimm et al. 27). 27 Jetzt pflegt man unter A. vornehmlich ein in die jetzige Ordnung der Dinge nicht passendes, seltsames Ereignis, sowie auch ein dem entsprechendes, mit der jetzigen Sitte nicht im Einklang stehendes wunderliches oder tollkühnes Beginnen zu verstehen. Demgemäß heißt abenteuerlich alles, was aus einer ausschweifenden, zügellosen Phantasie, oder aus überströmendem, muthwilligem Thatendrang hervorgeht und nicht nur ohne einen sittlich vernünftigen Zweck, sondern auch ohne verständige Ueberlegung unternommen wird (“Abenteuer” 32).
36 of implicit and explicit challenges to the bourgeois social order that must be
acknowledged and contained before they can be turned to productive ends.
As this section illustrates, in spite of its various semantic connotations, the term
Abenteuer has retained several core components over time, most importantly the central element of danger and risk in the face of the unknown. The following section explores the
conflict potential presented by these components, outlines the particular attractions of the
adventure genre, summarizes the range of pedagogical strategies employed to avoid,
diminish, repurpose, or otherwise neutralize the dangers of adventure, and considers the
significance of visual elements to the creation and maintenance of dramatic tension.
The Challenge of Adventure as Acceptable Youth Reading Material
Given the long history of conceptual antipathy between Abenteuer and bourgeois order (Bürgerlichkeit), it seems improbable that the two concepts could be reconciled in youth travel adventure narratives. Yet exactly these youth travel narratives became bestsellers amongst the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century bourgeois youth readership.
Bernd Steinbrink even calls the mid-nineteenth century the “Age of Adventure” (56–59).
The following section will outline the allure of adventure for this demographic and then explore how German authors struggled and succeeded in channeling that appeal towards their own ends.
Adventure literature is, by definition, exciting in many ways. According to Alfred
Baumgärtner, each of the four key components of an adventure story brings the exotic
37 and novel into intense, descriptive focus. In his typology of adventure, the narrative
structure is driven by a series of exciting events (1) unfolding against an exotic backdrop
(2), each of which presents an extraordinary incident (3) that is understood by the reader to represent a feasible, realistic (4) occurrence (219).28 For most readers, this type of
experience was unattainable in any manner that could be reconciled with their class
expectations. As such, adventuring through literature became a form of compensation for
the young reader’s inability to venture forth himself (Pech 221).
In particular, the focus on the individual’s experience of the exotic and dangerous
opened up potential for vicarious engagement that had been severely curtailed in
Enlightenment travel descriptions. Such texts typically attempt to integrate new
geographic and/or ethnographic knowledge into existing models of the universe:
individual perspectives are contextualized within larger, scientific projects. By contrast,
the travel adventure narrative is not primarily interested in objective observation, but
dramatic, subjective storytelling. As such, dramatic tension—not description—is the
engine that drives the genre: as Hiengen claims, it is the central effect, not just one of an
adventure text’s arsenal of means (42). Descriptive passages and observations are of
course still present, but focused through the subjective perspective of the protagonist.
Youth adventure literature makes the implicit connection between adventurer and
reader explicit. The bourgeois adventurer is not the medieval knight errant: his Holy
Grail is existential security through class affirmation, not martial or spiritual renown. In
other words, the bourgeois youth adventure narrative—primarily concerned with the
28 “…Inhalt als potentiell real dargestellt und vom Leser entsprechend aufgenommen” (Baumgärtner 219). 38 “validation of an individual for whom reality has failed to offer the possibilities of self- affirmation”—addresses a juvenile audience that yearns for precisely that self-affirmation
(Steinbrink 5).29 Stifled at home, the adventurer—and by extension, the reader—seeks out danger abroad in order to experience the success of his own actions as triumph
(Steinbrink 59). For example, hunting adventures (Jagdabenteuer) transform self- probation into self-preservation via dramatic tension (Spannungsgefühl) and enjoyable anxiety (Wonneangst) (Best 171). Through the adventure experience, the protagonist transforms from a fundamentally passive object incapable of changing his fate into an active subject able to overcome those circumstances through his own agency (Fohrmann
169). In short, the narrative encourages the reader to experience with the hero.
Falling Action? Squaring the Adventure
The conundrum facing the aspiring children’s adventure author was how to consolidate the anti-normative aspects central to adventure with conventional, educational aims. “Good” adventure typically seeks norms that consolidate the dangerous situation with bourgeois, familial values, most often with the help of divine providence
(Pohlmann 51). How is this achieved? In his essay, “Adventure and Youth Literature”
(“Das Abenteuer und die Jugendliteratur”), Alfred Baumgärtner identifies three strategies commonly used by pedagogues to negotiate this challenge: 1) guiding the reader toward virtuous examples through formal means (e.g., framing devices, narrative perspectives),
29 “Aufwertung eines Individuums…dem die Realität die Möglichkeiten der Bestätigung versagt hat” (Steinbrink 5). 39 2) differentiating strongly and clearly between “good” and “bad” adventures on the level of content, and 3) repurposing or functionalizing the adventure narrative for text-external, educational ends (223). The following sections explore each of these strategies in greater detail.
Forming Virtue
One of the most common means to “taming” adventure is by the use of formal framing devices to steer the reader toward desirable narrative interpretations (223).
Especially in early adventure stories, this device is often included at the end as a means of providing unity to an otherwise disjointed, episodic jumble of scenes. In instances such as these, a secret, overarching context is revealed at the end of the narrative to encapsulate all of the adventurous episodes within a fictional, historical teleology. At the narrative’s conclusion, the apparently disjointed and haphazard episodes are revealed to be integral components of God’s plan, and so the end justifies the scenes.
More common to children’s adventure narratives is the pre-emptive frame device, frequently in the form of diegetic equivalents of the implied reading situation.30 In
Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere, a paternal narrator tells the story of Robinson to his children, who engage with the narrative and each other in various ways, growing into their roles as the narrative unfolds. Such frame narratives cast an anchor into the reader’s
30 This is a common component to many children’s-literary genres from this time period. For example, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s well-known Children’s Collection (Le magasin des Enfants) and Christian Felix Weiße’s The Children’s Friend (Der Kinderfreund, 1775–1782) both situate their various contents within the communal, storytelling frame. 40 bourgeois reality, creating an additional buffer between Robinson and the reader in the
form of distracting, real-world analogues. These active child listeners in the frame
narrative also act as associative decoys: the dangerous urge to identify with the
protagonist is redirected to more appropriate objects.
Deployed in isolation, this particular approach to containing adventure can easily
backfire. While this strategy often successfully subordinates adventurous elements to the
service of pedagogical aims, it does so to the detriment of the narrative’s internal
consistency. As Jürgen Fohrmann observes, the heavy-handed attempt to contain or
command the affective attractions of adventure—fear, wonder, curiosity, suspense,
triumph—often threatens cohesion:
Where the adventure [narrative] aims at emancipating itself from adventure—that is, to regulate the affects that act as agents for the adventure—it creates a project that tends towards its own self-elimination. [For example] the adventure of the robinsonade does not present itself as pure delectare: it is quintessentially interested in turning its experience to practical uses; it is practical. But exactly this prodesse—namely, the goal of affect regulation—is incompatible with the program of adventure. (186)31
Exegetic role models can also play a role in this strategy, and the timely use of
exemplary virtue can cover over any number of otherwise fantastic adventure themes.
This is as common in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment as it is a century later:
31 Wo das Abenteuer darauf zielt, sich vom Abenteuer zu emanzipieren, d. h. die Affekte, die als Agens für das Abenteuer galten, zu reglementieren, errichtet es ein Projekt, das darauf tendiert, sich selbst zu eliminieren. Denn das Abenteuer der Robinsonaden gibt sich nicht als reines delectare: es ist in der Quintessenz seiner Erfahrungen auf den Gebrauch hin, ist praktisch geschrieben. Aber gerade dieses prodesse—nämlich die Affektregulierung als Ziel—ist inkompatibel mit dem Programm des Abenteuers... (186). 41 according to Klaus-Ulrich Pech, nineteenth-century KJL tolerates such elements as long
as they don’t interfere with the sober realities of bourgeois business (34). The
pedagogical adventure narrative is, in his view, reduced to a “stage, upon which selected
role models and scenes are presented in the presence of an educator and other pupils”
(53).32 Perhaps even more cynically, he notes that the “goal of Biedermeier literature is to sober and disillusion [readers], to deflate elevated expectations. The so-called good book for young people must not be [over-]stimulating, but rather chastening” (34).33 In sum, the appearance of adventure is acceptable, as long as it does not threaten the integrity of the youth work’s overarching, moral-pedagogical content.
Based on “True Events”
Another strategy for policing the boundaries of acceptable youth reading material
(Jugendlektüre) is to designate some adventures as acceptable. The most commonly used criterion for distinguishing “good” from “bad” adventures in the eighteenth century was the text’s relationship to real events: if the story could claim to be based on true events, set in a non-fictional location, or—best of all—penned by an eye-witness, then the author could easily claim pedagogical high ground.34 This did not necessarily mean sacrificing fun for facts: from the point of view of Enlightenment pedagogy, travel literature is just
32 “Das Abentuer ist eine Bühne, auf der ausgewählte Menschenexemplare und Szenen im Beisein der Erziehungsperson und anderer Zöglinge vorgeführt wurden” (53). 33 “Aufgabe der biedermeierlichen Literatur ist es, zu ernüchtern, zu desillusionieren, hochgespannte Erwartungen zurückzuweisen. Nicht anregend, sondern dämpfend muß die sogenannte gute Schrift für junge Leser sein” (34). 34 Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß observe that, unlike the obligatory information in textbooks, juvenile literature was “implicitly rather than explicitly educational” and had a “different claim to truth” (17). 42 as entertaining as reading novels, but has the added benefit of being useful. For this
reason, travel description was expected to completely drive out the novel from the youth-
literary canon (Brüggemann and Ewers 49).35 As Klaus-Ulrich Pech notes, the decisive difference was not the narrative content, but its perceived authenticity: “only the fictional travel descriptions are said to be dangerous for young readers, as they leave desires unsatisfied and bring readers no closer to parts unknown. On the other hand, descriptions of real travel make the ‘dreamt of and desired New World’ known to the reader” (34).36 It is important to remember that the “soundness” of knowledge is bound by socio-cultural information networks: “one encounters knowledge where actors are convinced that the information available to them is evidence-based, is authenticated by authorities, and is not transcendent” (Lässig 283). Even if the balance of the text’s form and content falls on the entertaining side of prodesse et delectare, the claim that a narrative is based on true events still carries weight when the source is recognized as reliable.
However, over the course of the nineteenth century, the stated criterion of
authenticity began to give way to more mutable criteria. Specifically, the connection to
true depictions lost significance over time, especially during the Wilhelmine era.37 “Real”
gave way to “realistic,” which in turn became further diluted into fiction-friendly
descriptors like “plausible” or “believable.” Similarly, standards for various adjacent
35 “Nach Ansicht der Aufklärungspädagogik ist ihre Lektüre ebenso unterhaltsam wie das Romanlesen, darüber hinaus aber viel nützlichen, weshalb denn auch die Reisebeschreibungen im jugendlichen Lektürekanon die Romane ganz verdrängen sollen” (Brüggemann and Ewers 49). 36 “…nur die fiktiven Reisebeschreibungen seien für junge Leser gefährlich, weil sie die Sehnsucht unbefriedigt ließen und die unbekannte Ferne nicht näher rückten. Beschreibungen wirklicher Reisen dagegen machten dem Leser die ‘erträumte und ersehnte neue Welt’ bekannt” (34). 37 As Schmiedt notes, the actual progress of European colonization propelled readers’ socio-political aspirations ever further into the realm of fantasy (112). 43 genres were also used to distinguish “good” from “bad” and “high” from “low.” For example, Kurt Bartsch locates the robinsonade between the dry but morally laudable coming-of-age novel (Entwicklungsroman) and the immoderate, irreverent picaresque
(Schelmenroman). As he notes, “the robinsonade genre offers the unique opportunity to set trivial works side-by-side with thematically related—and therefore legitimately comparable—works of ‘high literature’” (36).38 In instances like these, thematic affinities to accepted works acted as a sort of authentication by proxy.
Adventure with a Purpose: A Means to Another End
One final strategy is the inverse of taming the adventure content through heavy- handed framing devices: using the episodic, adventure scenario as a form-giving frame, it devotes so much space to the moral-technical content of the story that there can be no doubt as to its essential pedagogical fiber. This approach mercilessly crams exposition into convenient narrative slots. Perhaps the best example of this is Ernst August Geitner’s
Chemical-technical Robinson (Chemisch-technischer Robinson, 1809). In this text, the author (a doctor and chemist famous for inventing Argentan, or nickel silver) overwhelms the reader with so many technical details (including extensive diagrams), that the putative reason for travel is soon forgotten. In this and other “technical” examples from this period, detail defangs dramatic tension.
38 “die Romangattung Robinsonade bietet die fast einmalige Gelegenheit, triviale Werke einem thematisch verwandten und insofern zum Vergleich legitimierten Werk der ‘hohen’ Literatur gegenüberzustellen” (36). 44 As Otto Best and others have noted, the driving force of any adventure story is
dramatic tension. Shipwrecks, natural disasters, hostile encounters, terror, torture, and—
ultimately—deliverance are the raw materials from which the surrounding frame
narrative is loosely crafted. The challenge of this strategy is that it moves the narrative
away from what adventure does best: sensory descriptions of exciting experiences. This
tendency leads critics like Kevin Carpenter to describe Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere as
“an adventure novel without an adventurer” (“Der unendliche Robinson” 11).
Regardless of the strategy employed, the form and content of adventure required
significant adaptation in order to be deemed appropriate for a youth readership.
Specifically, the moral and social consequences must be so elevated— and the sensate
qualities of adventure so blunted, muted, or strongly redirected towards appropriate
conclusions—that the youth reader’s imagination cannot entertain the possibility of
actually emulating the protagonist. As will be explored below, this also extends to the
visualization of adventure as illustration.
VISUAL INNOVATIONS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Otto Best makes an interesting observation about the conceptual affinity between the adventurous “incident” and visuality: “until the eighteenth century, the form
‘eräugnen’ appeared alongside ‘ereignen’ [to occur]. It means ‘to bring before the eye, to show’” (Best 20).39 In other words, the primary sense for experiencing the new and
39 “Bis ins 18. Jahrhundert erschien neben ‘ereignen’ die Form ‘eräugnen.’ Es bedeutet ‘vor das Auge bringen, zeigen’” (Best 20) 45 exotic—the adventurous—was visual. Desire for novel, visual stimulation did not appear in a vacuum, but was fundamentally influenced by technology. While trains, steam ships, and other nineteenth-century technologies brought sweeping change to global travel, communication, and production capacities, similar mechanical, material, and technical innovations drove the expansion of the European publishing industry. At the turn of the century, the first steam-powered printing press doubled the hourly output capacity of the best hand-operated press (Bolza 80). Subsequent improvements resulted in a maximum output of 2,400 pages per hour by 1818, an increase of 500% over the hand-operated
Stanhope press and 1000% over the antiquated Gutenberg press (Bolza 83, 88). In 1844,
F. G. Keller and Charles Fenerty both developed industrial processes for pulping wood fibers that greatly lowered the cost of paper production (Burger 25). Finally, a range of techniques for printing and reproducing images emerged over the first half of the nineteenth century that had extensive influence on the production, design, and illustration of books.40 The volume of change is staggering: by mid-century, books on printing such as William Stannard’s The Art Exemplar (1859) listed 156 separate methods for printing images (Twyman 161). New developments effected each of the primary printing processes: wood-engraving (ca. 1800) and steel-engraving (ca. 1820) techniques increased the longevity and cost-efficiency of relief prints, steel-plate etching realized similar gains for intaglio processes, and Alois Senefelder’s new technique of lithography
40 Christina Kröll claims that, even in the mid-eighteenth century, not a single book was produced in Leipzig that did not have at least a title image: “Überblickt man die Breite des Angebots, so läßt sich feststellen, daß in Leipzig, einem der wichtigsten Zentren des Buchverlags und Buchhandels, nach der Jahrhundertmitte so gut wie kein Buch erscheint, das nicht wenigstens von einer kleinen Titelvignette geziert wird” (204). 46 (ca. 1796–1800) became the first planographic printing process.41 In the 1830s, the
development of chromoxylography—color wood-engraving—by Charles Knight (1838)
and chromolithography by Gottfried Engelmann (1837) began to replace hand-coloration
techniques.
By the late 1840s, nearly every facet of the publishing industry had undergone a
fundamental shift. These developments also impacted the children’s book market: though
primarily known for their impact on scientific lexica or encyclopedia, other text types
such as broadsheets, caricatures, and children’s picture books began to push the
possibilities of the illustrated book in Germany. European book historian John Harthan
even claims that this era in Germany is the “richest period in the history of illustration”
(172). Over the course of the century, visual illustration asserted its centrality among
printers, publishers, and readers alike.
According to Doris Schumacher, the four most prevalent types of illustration in
early nineteenth-century Germany were 1) large format broadsheets, 2) in-text
illustrations (relief prints), 3) pocketbook or alamanac illustrations (plates), and
illustrations on art objects (e.g., porcelain). The bourgeois public preferred a set of
themes that reflected its world, affirmed its lifestyle, or established its historical bona
fides: “most cherished were images that represented real people, landscapes or objects—
ideally works of art—as they could, just like the particularly respectable scientific
41 Especially valued were those technologies that could achieve a higher degree of verisimilitude. This striving for improved mimetic capabilities proved more lasting than political upheavals in the art world: Arthur Rümann claims that English Realism – not the French Revolution – had the most enduring impact on the evolution of art and artistic production in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe (7). 47 illustrations of the eighteenth century, claim pedagogical value” (Schumacher 207).42 Just like the content of their children’s books, the adult reading public seems to have preferred clear, unambiguous connections to real-world contexts over unbridled fantasies.
The synergy between verbal and visual products produced at this time is particularly clear in the genres of youth adventure and travel literature. Pech’s observations about the influence of illustration on adventure stories allude to the quality, but not the scope of the upheaval in the publishing industry. The change is immediately recognizable in the titles of both travel writing (in general) and adventure stories, where visual terms like travel image (Reisebild), panorama (Panorama), sketch (Skizze), and view (Ansicht) abound. As discussed in detail in Chapter 6, Theodor Dielitz’s travel anthologies demonstrate the prevalence of visual description.
Concurrent developments in KJL overlapped with this high time for illustration, but KJL histories of this period typically view the increase in visuality as evidence of the continued commercialization of juvenile literature. For example, Pech acknowledges that illustrated adventure stories created a vast reservoir of images that provided youthful readers with fantastical escape routes from the banality of the everyday. However, in most analyses KJL’s adaptation or coopting of adventurous travel writing follows purely commercial interests – repackaging and selling a stagnant genre trumps any concern for the Bildung of child readers. Better-quality illustrations became another selling point,
42 “…anerkannt waren Bilder, die tatsächliche Personen, landschaften oder Gegenstände, idealerweise Kunstwerke, wiedergaben, den sie konnten, wie die im 18. Jh. besonders gepflegte wissenschaftliche Illustration, pädagogische Wert beanspruchen” (Schumacher 207). 48 packaging that promised greater reading pleasure with little to no concern for how this focus affected child development (“Vom Biedemeier bis zum Realismus” 158).
Other KJL histories (such as those by Wild, Brunken et al., and Wegehaupt et al.) present similar themes: commercial interests increasingly override educational concerns as the children’s book becomes more literary. This concern is mirrored in some book historical accounts of the development of illustration techniques, many of which bemoan the decreasing quality of some reproductions due to the increasing distance between the artistry of the original drawing and the second-rate skill of the engraver tasked to reproduce it (Baumgart 15, Schumacher 22). Excepting the works of canonical authors and illustrators, both perspectives tend to view the overall effect of the publishing boom as an increase in quantity at the expense of quality (Hölter and Schmitz-Emans 9).
Literary historians and illustration specialists share another important tendency: they typically consider the illustrated adventure stories in this period from one of the two semiotic domains, with either the verbal (text) or visual (illustration) typically seen as the more valuable or interesting component. Perspectives from these two disciplines also tend to reinforce a strict division between the textual analysis of the narrative (the domain of the KJL critic or historian) and the visual analysis of the image (the domain of the art or book historian). What is therefore often missing from these viewpoints is a serious consideration of how the two media function together in the individual children’s book to jointly produce meaning.
This is not to say that such studies do not exist elsewhere—as robust contemporary research on picture books, comics, and other visually dynamic, multimedia 49 genres can attest—but rather that the overwhelming tendency is to assume that most
illustrated books with a low image-text ratio have little to offer in a comparative analysis.
Studies that focus on such texts in the realm of adult literature, like David Blewett’s The
Illustration of Robinson Crusoe, Rachel Schmidt’s Critical Images: The Canonization of
Don Quixote through Illustrated Editions of the Eighteenth Century, or Edward Hodnett’s
Image and Text: Studies in the Illustration of English Literature, highlight the
illustration’s—or illustrator’s—influence on the text’s reception, but view the former
primarily as a means for realizing, anchoring, or elaborating on particular textual
contents. While they acknowledge the historical impact of the illustration, the latter is
always viewed as subordinate to the textual narrative.
As Achim Hölter and Monika Schmitz-Emans noted in 2015, new research should
not seek to merely “illustrate” literary history with images, but to explore how images
can inform literary history (7).43 This dissertation seeks to complicate and challenge both the literary-historical readings and art and book historical viewings of these texts by approaching the illustrated children’s book as an essentially multimodal medium. Rather than merely affirming the boundaries of each register, it suggests that the combination of the two produces meaning that extends beyond what each can create individually.
Through comparative and comprehensive analyses of both semiotic domains, the project aims to bridge the gap between the individual literary or visual elements in order to re-
43 “…dass das Wissen der Literaturgeschichte nicht nur auch durch Bilder abgebildet wird, sondern sich auch z. T. in Bildern ausbildet” (7). 50 evaluate the effects of improved and increased illustration on the educational and
entertainment value of adventure stories during the first half of the nineteenth century.
More specifically, the dissertation will address the interactions between the two
media on three levels: a) an analysis of the image-text dynamics in the individual work—
building toward a range of possible dynamics, b) the potential effects of such dynamics
on the implied youth reader, and c) an assessment of if and how each illustrated book
maps onto the meta-narrative struggle between education and entertainment in KJL. The
rest of this chapter will give a rationale for the texts chosen for this study, and outline the
visual, textual, and multimodal methods used to consider them.
RE-VIEWING ADVENTURE: FROM TEXT OR IMAGE TO ILLUSTRATED BOOK
In the preface to his 1805 Library of Robinsons (Bibliothek der Robinsone), Johann Christian Ludwig Haken observed that a decades-long deluge of eighteenth- century robinsonades had threatened to break the levies of reason (ii). While many of those exempla have not survived, the corpus of nineteenth-century German youth adventure novels remains considerable to this day. In this section, I explain how this dissertation navigated the sea of potential texts to alight on the four insular case studies presented below. In the first section, I outline the project scope and detail the selection criteria used to build each chapter, moving from genre and period restrictions to considerations of national origin and definitions of illustration. The second section presents the dissertation’s overarching methodological framework and outlines its approach to image-text relations and individual image analysis.
51 Project Scope
This dissertation presents four case studies highlighting representative works of
intentional youth travel adventure stories published in German-speaking Europe between
1780 and 1860. Chapter 3 explores illustrated editions of Joachim Heinrich Campe’s
Robinson der Jüngere (1779/80), with a particular eye to how their changing visual
appearance contrasts with the text’s static pedagogical premise. Chapter 4 highlights
German editions of another robinsonade, Frederick Marryat’s Masterman Ready (1841).
Extremely popular in its time, this British import is all but unknown today. Its visual
consistency and programmatic attempt to revise another children’s classic, Johann David
Wyß’s Der Schweizerische Robinson (1812), make it particularly interesting. Chapter 5 presents German adaptations of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales (1845), one of the most popular youth anthologies in German literary history. It contrasts the bourgeois modesty of adult adaptations of the text with the more garish and sensational elements in shortened youth versions. Finally, Chapter 6 explores Theodor Dielitz’s
Land-und Seebilder (1841–1861), a collection of heavily adapted travel anthologies that repackaged the “greatest hits” of contemporary travel adventure into uniform, age-
appropriate chunks.
The texts introduced above were chosen from a host of possibilities using the
following criteria. First, I only considered works that were clearly identifiable as travel
adventure stories—travel narratives that emphasize the exciting, thrilling, or perilous
moments such as shipwrecks, natural catastrophes, and violent encounters with so-called
“savage” natives. These works must be set in concrete, feasible, real-world locations. 52 This definition includes adventurous travel stories (i.e., those works that are nominally travel descriptions but include the same climactic moments outlined above), robinsonades, military adventures (i.e., war stories), and so-called Native American or
Western novels. It excludes folk or fairy tale narratives that take place in archetypal or fantastical spaces.
Second, a critical mass of editions for these works must have been published in
German-speaking Europe between 1780 and 1860. In this context, a “critical mass” is loosely defined by two factors—the regularity of print runs (e.g., the steady availability of editions) and their variety, evidenced by revisions, borrowings, or other qualitative amendments. In similar fashion, the specific date range was chosen to capture a variety of factors: a) the development of adventure literature as a youth-literary genre, b) the effects of printing innovations on illustrated book production, and c) the range of period attitudes towards Bildung, childhood, and children’s books. The count of unique editions was less significant than their ubiquity—I wanted demonstrably popular works that overlapped with one another and sustained individual success over multiple decades.
The period begins with Joachim Heinrich Campe’s publication of Robinson the
Younger in 1779/80, and ends with Theodor Dielitz’s adaptations published from 1841–
1861. Both are canonical authors of German KJL who embody the two poles of the text- image ratio possible in illustrated books: Campe’s eighteenth-century Robinson contained only one frontispiece to “anchor” the textual reading, while each of Dielitz’s adventure anthologies (on average 316 pages long) is accompanied by a series of eight, hand- colored lithographs. These two bookends also demonstrate the publishing innovations 53 achieved in the intervening seventy years. While it only covers the early stages of chromolithographic illustration (which would become the most significant process for producing color images until the twentieth century), it includes all of the major early- century printing developments prior to photography. Furthermore, the period between
1780 and 1860 encompasses a broad range of perspectives on Bildung, childhood, and youth and children’s books, most of which overlapped and struggled with one another.
Beyond conceptual shifts, the period also spans many familiar literary-historical epochs—from the Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Romanticism to Biedermeier, and early Realism—and art historical periods from Enlightenment, Romanticism, and
Biedermeier “schools.”
Third, the books must have been directly marketed toward a German youth readership—even if this was not always the case. Returning to Ewer’s category of intentional KJL, this means that, regardless of other potential addressees (whether past or contemporaneous), any travel-adventure narrative is acceptable. This includes those previously considered adult literature that have been adapted or excerpted for a child audience—a large portion of mid-century adventure stories for children. It also excludes considerations of the national origin of the author or work. This too, was by design—my purpose here was not to locate these books along a pre-existing (proto-) German national- literary narrative, but to better grasp the internal dynamics of a popular genre in its own time. This consideration specifically led me to exclude popular works by the likes of
German authors Friedrich Gerstäcker, Balduin Möllhausen, and Charles Sealsfield, each of whose Western adventure narratives are a) not expressly written for a youth 54 readership, and b) too neatly clustered around the well-worn path from James Fenimore
Cooper to Karl May. Though many others have done so, I did not want to retell the story of the German Native American novel. In a similar fashion, I also did not want to merely
“add pictures” to existing national narratives of the German pedagogical robinsonade. To this end I sought a representative sample of some of the major streams of nineteenth- century adventure literature that co-existed and competed with one another across multiple decades: the Enlightenment robinsonade (Campe), a hybrid of the maritime novel and group robinsonade (Marryat), the North American, Western, or Native
American novel (Cooper); and the travel anthology (Dielitz).
Finally, and perhaps most importantly for this study, a significant number of the editions had to contain illustrations. In the field of KJL, “illustrated books” encompass a broad range of text types—not all of which can be found in the genre of adventure literature. The typology provided by children’s picture book researchers Maria
Nikolajeva and Carole Scott is useful here. In How Picturebooks Work, Nikolajeva and
Scott present a broad spectrum of illustrated books arranged by the word-to-image ratio present in each. Most nineteenth-century adventure literature falls closer to the “word” side of the “word-to-image” spectrum (i.e., the illustrated narrative), and does not resemble the predominance of images featured in comics, picture books, or non-narrative texts (12). For this study, the term “illustrated books” refers to text-driven books with accompanying images.
In this context, the inclusion of a single illustration is enough to constitute a multimodal text. However, the type of illustration is also important. While some advocate 55 a broad definition of book illustration—Edward Hodnett laconically claims that “any
picture in a book is an illustration”—this project defines illustration as a significant, but
distinct visual accompaniment to the predominately textual narrative (1). As the texts
chosen for this study do not typically rely on illustrations to advance the narrative (i.e.
they can be read and interpreted without such “visual aids”), this means that any visual
accompaniment, from frontispiece to chapter vignette, was sufficient.
In sum, this dissertation explores illustrated adventure literature published in
Germany for a youth readership between 1779 and 1860. It focuses on the impact of new
print technologies on “traditional” narrative text genres. Ultimately, the project aims to
illustrate how reading such texts as multimodal books can provide interesting insights
into how both word and image contribute to the pedagogical goals of the genre.
General Theoretical Framework
Broadly speaking, this dissertation seeks to contribute to theoretical and historical
considerations of the intersection of visual and verbal modes of representation in the illustrated book. However, rather than reasserting the hegemony of one mode over another, the project is an attempt to understand how the two semiotic domains can be combined to collectively produce meaning. To this end, it draws its primary theoretical
inspiration from the pioneering work of historian and visual culture expert W. J. T.
Mitchell, who criticizes the persistence of a “gulf” between word and image. In
Iconology, Mitchell claims that this rift is so prevalent that
56
the dialectic of word and image seems to be a constant in the fabric of signs that a culture weaves around itself. What varies is the precise nature of the weave, the relation of warp and woof. The history of culture is in part the story of a protracted struggle for dominance between pictorial and linguistic signs, each claiming for itself certain proprietary rights on a ‘nature’ to which only it has access (43).
The first challenge to any project that seeks to compare the two is how to avoid privileging the “proprietary rights” of one register at the expense of the other. Mitchell acknowledges that, historically, this has usually meant the affirmation of the word as superior to the image (47). This tendency is perhaps to be expected in literary studies of illustrated works that describe the primary function of illustration as the realization of
“significant aspects of the text” as Hodnett does (13). However, such a common-sense perspective is also present in other disciplinary fields. For example, even research in children’s literature, a field comprised of many multimodal genres, was often dismissive of illustration as an “appendage” of the textual narrative until the past few decades
(Schwarcz 3). Yet perhaps even more surprising is the appearance of this bias in the works of prominent art and book historians. Print historian Michael Ivins describes book illustrations primarily as “conveyors of information” or “tools in the struggles of opinion,” highlighting their secondary nature (155). Good illustrations behave – they accentuate or augment the overarching textual narrative that they support in an attempt to create a unified presentation (Bland 16). These perspectives reveal an underlying consensus in the scholarship about illustrated books – the illustrations are always secondary to the text. 57 More recent studies in the field of children’s literature that focus on the image- heavy genres of comics, picture books, and graphic novels have been successful in challenging the hegemony of the word. Early landmarks such as Perry Nodelman’s
Words about Pictures, Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott’s How Picturebooks Work, and
Joseph Schwarcz’s Ways of the Illustrator demonstrate the reciprocal nature of the image-text relationship in children’s picture books. While many of their specific conclusions pertain to the image-heavy side of Nikolajeva and Scott’s spectrum of illustrated books, they both introduce productive theoretical models and concepts for tackling the image-text problem in other types of books.
The concept of unified meaning underlines each of their theories, though they approach the process from different theoretical frameworks. Nodelman draws primarily on the semiotic theories of Roland Barthes to demonstrate how the image and word each translate or interpret one another to produce new meaning. Specifically, he claims, words and pictures can complement one another and achieve a higher unity at the level of the story (30). Barthes describes this process as relaying, and locates its productive potential in the mutual limiting that both registers present. Similarly, Nikolajeva and Scott emphasize the hermeneutic nature of the illustrated book, which compels the reader to fill in the textual and visual “gaps” with insights from the complementary medium. Schwarcz provides an extensive typology of the functions of illustrations, each of which describes a different mode of interpreting and commenting on the textual narrative. Though they
58 focus primarily on picture books, these three works provide useful tools for approaching
the text-image relationship in particular text types.44
As the recent history of picture book scholarship has shown, more specific projects can be productive in overcoming the limitations of both textual and visual modes of reading illustrated books. To this end I situate this project within two frames: the pedagogy of youth adventure and the material frame of the illustrated book. The common literary frame of the genre’s pedagogical aims privileges an overarching, verbal mode of interpreting the entire work, but treating the illustrated text as a cultural product composed of multiple media helps to counteract this tendency. It also avoids the art historical tendency to reduce evaluations of illustrated books to their visual originality.
By avoiding these two “extremes,” the frame of the illustrated book keeps questions of the hierarchy of the image-text relationship open to the possibility that illustration might not always be subordinate to the textual frame, even in the genres explored here.
Beyond the frame of the illustrated book, this study relies on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of field to situate its analysis within broader contexts. In The Field of Cultural
Production, Bourdieu describes a field as a system of social positions structured according to power relationships. Within this general structure, agents who possess relevant forms of capital can use this resource to their advantage. As the aforementioned
44 In Iconology, Mitchell unsuccessfully advances a broader notion of image as a possible framework for discussing both word and image through a unified concept. In his conclusion, Mitchell is forced to admit that the inherent contextuality of meaning produced by both registers makes general theories impossible. For this project, a unifying medium such as Mitchell’s image might also be undesirable, as it threatens to shift the emphasis of the study too far toward an assumed unity between the two media, and to efface the distinction between the different contributors (author, artist, engraver, publisher etc.) to the illustrated book. Focusing on a single text type, a comparative perspective proceeding from the difference of both media may be better suited to assessing their combination. 59 literary and art historical perspectives have suggested, high quality illustration grew to become a key form of capital in the field of nineteenth-century book production. In
Bourdieu’s model, the influence of new printing technologies can be seen as the beginnings of a gradual shift from textual to visual (graphic) capital as the most significant semiotic currency for communication. These modes of capital are similarly analogous to the verbal and visual strands comprising Mitchell’s text-image tapestry
(field). Mitchell and others have already commented on this struggle of competing currencies at the macro level (Iconology, 43). This dissertation attempts to further explore how the competition between textual and visual capital plays out within the specific arena of the individual illustrated children’s adventure book.
The focus of this project is on individual instances of this interplay. It does not aim to produce a general theory for the text-image dynamic, but rather to catalogue the diversity of potential interactions within a text-centric genre. The goal is to explore a familiar object—the illustrated adventure story—from a more holistic perspective than is typical in the fields of literary studies or art history. By shuttling between the warp and woof of word and image, it ultimately aims to contribute to a broadening of our understanding of the fabric of nineteenth-century print culture.
Image-Text Dynamics
This project proceeds from the premise that, in order to understand the overall tapestry created by image and text, it is necessary to first explore these strands individually. For this reason, the overall analysis of each illustrated book begins with a 60 treatment of each medium separately, beginning with the textual and proceeding to the visual. Following this, a comparative analysis of the two in tandem returns the focus to the level of the book and a final, cumulative assessment will tie each of the various threads together. The specific processes employed are outlined in greater detail below. Each case study incorporates both text-internal features and text-external contexts. The former include the text’s stated pedagogical goals—the aims of its author, illustrator, or publisher—alongside the narrative structure and content. In each case study, secondary literature on individual works and editions informs both layers of this textual analysis. The canny observer may note that many of the text-internal features listed above are more frequently considered paratextual in literary analyses. Introductions, statements of pedagogical principle, and other prefatory matter(s) each frame the text, but they are not it. This emphasis is by design. While certain sections of my analysis use close readings of individual passages as evidence, my primary interest in the textual components of these works is how their narrative flow and frame relates to the overall “mission” of the text. This is not to say that traditional, text-centric modes of analysis are not useful. For example, a comprehensive, comparative close reading of Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales to their German youth adaptations could certainly provide new perspective on the processes and products of transnational adaptation and productively inform a more granular analysis of the work’s illustration history. However, given this project’s focus on the interface between visual and verbal modes in four different case studies, incorporating such a detailed textual analysis in each chapter threatens to distract from my overarching purpose. In this light, the text itself is primarily of interest insofar as it delivers (or fails to deliver) what it promises: education and entertainment. It should also be acknowledged here that the emphasis on the multimodal interplay of paratextual and visual components for the young German reader (within the 61 overarching framework of the author’s alleged ambition to educate and entertain said reader) highlights the viewer’s (and producer’s) perspectives and pre-occupations. Even in the context of children’s literature, that perspective is frequently a colonial one, and needs to be acknowledged as such. Although Wilhelmine Germany was not a colonial power until the 1870s—several decades after the time period under consideration here— German authors and readers alike created and perpetuated colonial modes of seeing themselves, the world, and its other inhabitants. The genres of travel and adventure literature were particularly potent sites for exploring (national) colonial aspirations, and have been analyzed at length by German scholars. In her foundational work, Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1770–1870, Susanne Zantop explores how pre-Wilhelmine German authors participate in a pan-European “colonial imaginary” through literature:
By commenting upon and criticizing the colonial ventures of others, individuals and nations; by building on, revising, and amending the theories developed outside German borders by foreign discoverers; and, above all, by imagining colonial scenarios that allowed for an identification with the role of conqueror or colonizer, Germans could create a colonial universe of their own, and insert themselves into it (Zantop 7).
While Zantop’s analyses focus mostly on the colonial imaginary in adult literature, her chapter on Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere suggests that youth works were just as important in modeling particular (colonial) modes of seeing and assessing the world—as well as one’s place in it. In the context of this project, the self-reflexive nature of this type of gaze is reinforced by the narrative structures: in the end, the adventurer must return home and take up his proper place within the bourgeois (colonial) society. To
62 this end, the inhabitants of exotic, colonial spaces function primarily as foils for the “civilized” European protagonist. When German characters replace British or French figures in translations of colonial adventure narratives (as is the case in the German adaptations of Frederick Marryat’s Masterman Ready explored in Chapter 5), their actions, values, and virtues are frequently contrasted with those of the other, non-German colonists. In both cases, readers are encouraged to emulate positive role models (e.g., by acknowledging the expertise of a British sailor or empathizing with the valorous “noble savage”), reject negative ones (e.g., by criticizing the practice of slavery or revolting at native cannibalism), and reflect on the virtues or vices of their own behaviors. In other words, both colonized and colonizing others (e.g., non-Germans) can serve as means to define a nascent German identity in these narratives. While only a few of the case studies in this dissertation explore this directly (see Chapters 5 and 6), this was a successful strategy for encouraging national self-awareness in young German readers. For example, in “Knowing Others as Selves: German Children and American Indians,” H. Glenn Penny notes that German children’s interest in Native Americans was often motivated by a desire to define one’s own identity: “American Indians functioned as liminal characters in which German children learned more about themselves and their idealizations about good and bad character traits, about the importance of the natural world for human happiness, and definitions about what was indeed natural that they learned about ostensible ‘others’” (176). Child readers may not have been aware of this, but authors and publishers certainly were, and exploited it. The analysis of the illustrations in each book acknowledges these concerns as it highlights their respective content, form, and production techniques. As all of the illustrations in the adventure literature selected are representational (i.e., not abstract), I use Erwin Panofsky’s three-layered model—which identifies natural, conventional, and 63 intrinsic levels of meaning—for interpreting the content of visual art forms. Depending on the examples in question, these are accompanied by a formal analysis of the line rhythm, mass, space, light and shade, and color of the image. At this stage I also identify the printing processes used to produce each image. The first stage of this analysis develops an interpretation of the natural and conventional levels of meaning in the illustration. In Panofsky’s model, the former corresponds to the “pre-iconographical” stage at which the viewer identifies the subject matter of the work. This simplistic level of meaning is followed by the “conventional” layer, which draws on generic, cultural, and other conventional forms of knowledge to begin to interpret meaning in the illustration. This level will also incorporate a formal analysis informed by the identifiable printing processes used. This all builds towards my primary goal: a comparative analysis of the verbal and visual components of the individual work. This is constructed on two levels: first, by comparing the illustrations and text(s) as they appear together on the individual page, then collectively on the level of the book as a whole. Following this, I compare the results of this analysis to the relevant internal and external factors to develop a cumulative assessment of the overall effect of the image-text relationship on the illustrated work. In other words, each case study tests how the visual and verbal components in each book interact with each other and with the work’s overarching pedagogical mission. Two key concepts from the field of book history drive the comparison on the individual image-text level: Edward Hodnett’s moment of choice and David Bland’s framework of the mise en page. The moment of choice refers to the illustrator’s decision of what narrative “moment” to represent, interpret, or decorate. According to Hodnett, the illustration is a “parallel pictorial statement which can reinforce the author’s intent without being strictly faithful to his words” (15). This means that the illustrator’s choice 64 of both the content and manner of their illustration has the potential to significantly impact the reader’s perception of the textual narrative. For this project, describing the moment, manner, and mode of this realization is central. This emphasis on temporal selection is derived from important eighteenth-century antecedents. David Wellbery describes the “rule of the pregnant moment” in Mendelssohn and Lessing as follows: “spatial signs must be used to represent a single point in time; this point should be as meaningful as possible in terms of the action leading up to and following it” (90). In effect,
The choice of the pregnant moment guarantees that the viewer’s imagination can transcend the represented content substance and can itself select aspects of the remaining content material—the rest of the action—for concretization. What is important here is that, as a result of the suggestiveness of the representation, the viewer’s imagination acquires a freedom of production that exceeds the perimeters of the painted content (169).
Choosing a particular moment is a central determiner of “what” is illustrated, but “how” it is presented is equally important. In a similar fashion, the mise en page also has profound influence on the reader’s experience of the illustrated book. With this term, book historian David Bland advocates the unity of the individual page as the fundamental
standard for assessing the overall quality of the illustrated book. For Bland, the mise en page is the stage upon which the performance of the verbal and visual elements can either succeed or fail (16). Such success is determined not by the respective quality of these two
elements (though this is significant), but by the unity of their joint presentation.45 Collaboration between the two semiotic domains is necessary, but congruence is ideal.
45 In Bland’s analysis, relief techniques – such as wood-engraving – are better equipped to achieve this: “Far from divorcing illustration from the text, as lithography tended to do, wood-engraving married them 65 Whatever the tenor of the image-text interaction, the illustration always has a focalizing effect on the experience of the text. Focalization, a term central to the field of narratology, is not typically used to refer to image-text interactions, and bears unpacking here before its application in each case study. In the simplest terms, focalization is “a selection or restriction of narrative information in relation to the experience and knowledge of the narrator, the characters or other, more hypothetical entities in the storyworld” (Niederhoff, “Focalization”). Gérard Genette, who first coined the term in Narrative Discourse, uses it to distinguish between the narrator (e.g., who speaks?) and the “character whose point of view orients the narrative perspective” (e.g., who sees?) (186). Focalization thus recognizes the potential differences between the perspectives (point-of-view) of the narrator and the characters. In Narratology: An Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, Mieke Bal further expands Genette’s theory to encompass both the subject and the object of focalization. The former, a “point from which the elements are viewed” is the focalizor, while the latter is the object of focalization (146). She then distinguishes between character-bound and external focalization. Character-bound focalization (CF) occurs when the focalizer is a character within the narrative. As Bal notes and this study confirms, extensive CF typically facilitates greater attention and sympathy with the focalizer—most often the hero of the book (148). By contrast, external focalization (EF) is the norm when “an anonymous agent…is functioning as focalizor” (148). In most instances, this is the narrator. Most interesting to this study, however, is what Bal calls free indirect focalization, or ambiguous focalization. This describes a scenario in which the EF watches along with the CF—when “an object (which the character can perceive) is
ever more closely. Blocks are embedded in the type and one is overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of them, so that it sometimes seems as if each word is being illustrated” (285). 66 focalized, but nothing clearly indicates whether it is actually perceived” (159). In this instance, the narrator approximates the character’s own words or thoughts without letting it speak for itself. The adventure narratives explored in this dissertation frequently leverage this ambiguity to encourage vicarious participation in climactic events (e.g., through the CF) without relinquishing the EF’s interpretive control. Beyond their utility in narrative analysis, Bal’s terms are highly relevant to this study on two levels. In a conventional manner, they can be used to describe how individual illustrations function as interpretations of specific narrative content. Bal herself advocates their use for analyzing visual stories (161–170). Who is the focalizor in the scene, and what (or whom) is the object of that focalization? Additionally, focalizor and focalized allude to the role of the illustration as vital, additional vector in shaping the reader’s engagement with the narrative. In Bal’s terms, the illustration (and the artist/engraver/illustrator) creates another type of external focalization distinct from the normal operations of the text’s narrator (EF). This focalizing intervention exists both within the textual narrative (e.g., as another EF) but also above it, as an integral part of the creative process of publication. In sum, page-level analysis focuses on the individual illustration’s choice and realization of a particular moment of the textual narrative. For each pairing, I assess the formal unity of the overall presentation (mise en page) alongside the congruence of its contents (moment of choice), and consider if and how the illustrations serves as a visual focalizor for the reader. Finally, I consider the illustration in regard to the overall text and context that it participates in. Building on the these analyses, I assess the overall “success” of the text-image dynamic for each edition at the end of each case study. I consider the visual and textual narratives as separate entities and analyze their overall collaboration in the frame of the 67 illustrated book. The central concern here is congruence: do the visual and textual narratives correspond at the formal, content, and conventional levels throughout the text? What effects does this congruence (or incongruence) have on the overall impression of the book? These considerations build towards a cumulative analysis of the individual work, which I subsequently link to the broader fields in the general framework: the book’s stated pedagogical aims, and generic features. In Chapter 7, I bring each of the four case studies (outlined in detail at the end of this chapter) in a cumulative assessment of the genre’s visual-verbal tensions.
CONCLUSION
This chapter contextualizes the dissertation within the fields of children’s literary studies and visual cultural studies, outlined the dissertation’s scope, defines its methodological approach to reading, situating, and comparing images, acknowledges its limitations, and outlines its potential contributions to the fields of German children’s literature, critical bibliography, and visual cultural studies. The following chapters present four case studies that explore and compare editions of illustrated adventures. They are presented in a rough chronological order— from Joachim Heinrich Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere (1779/80) to Frederick Marryat’s Masterman Ready (1841), James Fenimore Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen (1845), and finally, Theodor Dielitz’s Land- und Seebilder (1841–1861)—but frequently overlap in chronology. Following the methodology outlined above, they attempt to give a representative account of how the different types of adventure narrative that grew to prominence during this period incorporated illustrations and paratextual features into the pedagogical aims underwriting their texts. 68 CHAPTER 3
Ambiguous Accents: J. H. Campe's Robinson the Younger (Robinson der
Jüngere) Between Enlightenment and Adventure (1779-1848)
INTRODUCTION
Eighteenth-century Europe was mad for Robinson Crusoe. Published in 1719,
Daniel Defoe’s novel inspired hundreds of adaptations, imitations, and an international genre of robinsonades. Drawing on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s influential treatise, Émile, or On Education, in which the philosopher advocated Robinson Crusoe as the best and only text for a child to read, a sub-genre of pedagogical robinsonades in Germany reconceived a truncated version of the Crusoe narrative as a practical and moral teaching tool. The influence of these texts cannot be understated—Susanne Zantop claims that,
“more than any other text, Robinson Crusoe shaped the minds of German children, youths, and hence adults, from the eighteenth well into the twentieth century” (103). The most successful German-language adaptation of the Robinson story, Joachim Heinrich
Campe’s Robinson the Younger (Robinson der Jüngere), remained the preferred version for German readers throughout the nineteenth century.
Nineteenth-century editions of Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere reveal the complex effects of added illustrations on the overall tenor and reception of the book. When it was first published in 1779/80, Campe’s pedagogical adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson
Crusoe was accompanied by only two images: an engraved frontispiece of the father- 69 narrator reading to a group of children beneath a tree, and a small vignette of an iron
plow. The selection of the former image punctuated the structurally integrated, narrative
authority of the paternal storyteller as well as the fundamentally passive, receptive
attitude of the child listeners. Privileging oral narration in this way also justified the
omission of any other illustrations that might distract unruly children from their fathers’
moral directives.
Within a few decades of its initial publication, however, the material presentation
of the text had changed significantly, gradually incorporating more and more illustrations
over time. This trend—present across publishers—peaked with the 1848 authorized46
luxury edition of Robinson der Jüngere. This edition featured forty-eight wood-engraved
images that animate, complement, and complicate the textual narrative’s exclusive claim
to authority. Reading the text’s largely unaltered, eighteenth-century pedagogical
impulses and didactic narrative structures alongside its various visual realizations reveals
ambiguous—and often unintended—shifts in the work’s internal logic as well as its
dynamic relationship to the growing corpus of youth and adult adventure literature.
ROBINSON DER JÜNGERE – ADVENTURE AS A PLATFORM FOR PEDAGOGY
By the time his Robinson der Jüngere was published in 1779/80, Campe had already established his reputation as one of the pre-eminent pedagogical voices in
Germany. Alongside narrative works, he had made substantial contributions to the
46 Those printed by either Campe’s Schulbuchhandlung or his son-in-law and successor Johann Friedrich Vieweg’s Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn in Braunschweig. 70 advancement of formal education in Prussia47—most notably his 16-volume General
Revision of the Entire School and Education System (Allgemeine Revision des gesamten
Schul- und Erziehungswesens)—and was a vociferous advocate for the preservation and
codification of the German language. Yet, despite his voluminous contributions to the
social, moral, educational, and political issues48 of the time, it is Robinson der Jüngere,
which by some estimates inspired as many as seventy-one adaptations, five continuations,
and translations into twelve languages in the first 100 years of its publication alone, that
cemented his legacy as a foundational figure in the development of specific children’s
literature49 in Germany (Ullrich 78–84).
The text proceeds from a very simple premise: the best way to teach young students is to instrumentalize their natural curiosity and imagination—their fantasy—and guide it toward productive ends. In Émile, Rousseau claims that such a synthesis of imagination and utility will instill in the child reader an insatiable desire for practical knowledge: “the child, in a hurry to set up a storehouse for his island, will be more ardent for learning than is the master for teaching. He will want to know all that is useful, and he will want to know only that” (185). In the preface to Robinson der Jüngere, Campe outlines similar aims: first, he wants to entertain his young readers in as pleasant a
47 Campe collaborated with many of the Philanthropists, and even succeeded Johann Bernhard Basedow as headmaster of the Philanthropinum in Dessau in 1776. His affiliation was short-lived, however, and Campe left one year later for Hamburg, where he established his own teaching institute along a similar model. 48 Campe, a political liberal and sympathizer with the early French Revolution, travelled to Paris in 1789 with Wilhelm von Humboldt (his former pupil), participated in the National Assembly, and was named an honorary citizen of the First Republic in 1792. 49 In his 2008 dissertation, “Taming Travel and Disciplining Reason: Enlightenment and Pedagogy in the Work of Joachim Heinrich Campe,” Richard Apgar notes that Campe’s trilogy of travel novels, Die Entdeckung von Amerika (1781/82) are also foundational examples of specific children’s literature. Yet however significant they were in this regard, none of them had the lasting commercial or cultural impact of Robinson der Jüngere. 71 manner as possible, because children’s hearts are most open to useful instruction when they are amused (Robinson der Jüngere, 1981, 5). He then proceeds to present
“elementary knowledge” organically through the use of genuine (i.e., non-fictional) objects and situations, so that child readers may be afforded plenty of natural occasions to develop pious, God-fearing sentiments (6). The exotic potential of Defoe’s narrative of a shipwrecked sailor struggling to survive on an uncharted island is reframed and repurposed into a fantastical “lure” for Campe to draw child readers toward practical knowledge and moral maxims.
Campe also describes how his text should be read to achieve those ends. He identifies two primary modes of reading: adult oral narration to younger (pre-literate) children, and individual, silent reading for older and more discerning child readers (6).
The frame narrative mirrors the former reading arrangement: after the day’s work has been done, the father-narrator tells the story of young Robinson to a group of avid child listeners. While the children often comment on, question, or otherwise interrupt the narrative with their own opinions, such breaks in the paternal monologue become occasions for the father-narrator to present or clarify a particular practical or moral lesson. For example, an episode in which Robinson slaughters a docile llama shocks the youngest listener, Lotte, who is horrified at the loss of the protagonist’s companion and pet. The father-narrator uses her emotional response as an occasion to make a moral pronouncement: it would be terrible to kill, torture, or even disturb an animal without cause, but putting it to good use—killing it for food—is not forbidden, and even benefits the health of a herd (79). 72 It is perhaps unsurprising that—given the text’s multilayered preoccupation with
its own reception and consumption—few critics have commented on the content of the
Robinson episodes over the past two centuries.50 Instead, scholarly commentary on
Robinson der Jüngere has centered on the textual and psychological mechanisms
supporting its instrumentalization of child fantasy. Most analyses focus on how various
aspects of Campe’s project relate to broader contexts: how the author regulates the
reader’s exploration of morally transgressive fantasies (e.g., Enlightenment pedagogical
rhetoric), how it positions itself against the threat of unchecked, extensive reading
(Lesewut), and how the text asserts its own utility in a changing world despite its thematic
proximity to antisocial content. An overview of these concerns will help to establish the
breadth and depth of the affective, social, and moral stakes involved in Campe’s
Robinson der Jüngere.
In The Domesticated Fantasy: Studies on Children’s Literature, Child Reading,
and Literary Pedagogy in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Centuries (Die
domestizierte Phantasie. Studien zur Kinderliteratur, Kinderlektüre und
Literaturpädagogik des 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhunderts), Rüdiger Steinlein observes that
Robinson der Jüngere’s success is due primarily to the harmonic combination of
discipline and wish fulfillment that grows from rooting the story in a fantastic and
50 While his influence on international pedagogy and children’s literature is acknowledged, critical reception of Campe’s literary work remains considerably less charitable. Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer notes that, since 1779, 27 literary histories present an overall negative judgment of Campe’s oeuvre, while 30 cast him in a positive light (85). However, as Reiner Wild observes, while Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere enjoyed more financial success and contemporary acclaim, German Kinderbuchforschung still considers Johann Wezel’s Robinson Krusoe the more successful and significant literary adaptation of Defoe’s original (“Aufklärung” 77). 73 desirable situation. This constellation grants the child reader (or listener) the ability to explore morally transgressive desires in a carefully controlled environment that still condemns them, contributing to the effect of socialization51 through the creation of desire
(Steinlein 148). By tightly guiding and controlling the interpretation of transgressive behavior toward conventional mores, the text directly promotes the uncritical adoption of established norms (Liebs 207). Fantasy draws the child reader in, but the father-narrator is always there to curb and redirect their imaginative energies towards conventional moral ends.52
This paternal figure—a structural feature not present in Defoe’s first-person
Robinson Crusoe—asserts itself early and often as a means to mediate and regulate the child listener-reader’s interpretation of the misfortunes of (negative role model)
Robinson. The result is that, by the end, the children have learned to desire exactly what is right and proper (Steinlein 209). This type of Socratic dialogue—a rhetorical device often deployed in eighteenth-century children’s books—functions by using examples of virtuous (or immoral) behavior to illustrate the appropriate interpretation of a concrete
51 This concern for the overall effect of the text on its consumer mirrors Janice Radway’s description of the compensatory nature of twentieth-century Romance reading, which can be seen as “an acceptable way of securing emotional sustenance not provided by others only if the activity can be accomplished without mounting a fundamental challenge to the previous balance of power in the marriage relationship. It is a method of garnering attention for the self that creates a minimum amount of dissonance between accepted role expectations and actual behavior precisely because the assertion of self-interest is temporary and expressed through leisure pursuits that are relatively less significant than other areas of concern” (Radway 103). Bourgeois children were encouraged to be armchair adventurers as long as the time, place, content, and context of their reading did not threaten their development into productive, morally upright citizens. 52 For other studies on the psychological relationship between education and work established in this text, see Hans-Christoph Koller’s “Erziehung zur Arbeit als Disziplinierung der Phantasie: J. H. Campes Robinson der Jüngere im Kontext der philanthropischen Pädagogik,” or Achim Leschinsky’s “Campes Robinson als Klassiker der bürgerlich wohltemperierten pädagogischen Reform: Ein erziehungswissenschaftlicher Kommentar.” 74 situation and often concludes with the introduction of a formulaic moral tenet to refer to
as a guideline for future behavior (Wild 343). By following the paternal voice of
Enlightenment, obedient children are assured that they will be spared from the hardship,
strife, and extreme isolation of the rebellious Robinson.
If Campe’s strong preoccupation with curating interpretation seems excessive or
paranoid to the twenty-first century reader, it was not without cause. According to Heinz
Brüggemann and Hans-Heino Ewers, Campe’s extraordinary measures—both within the
textual narrative and in his preface—were apparently necessary as clarification for both
parents and child readers alike: “for the contemporary reader, Robinson appears to have
been an escape story” (225).53 The author’s concern about misinterpretation was especially pronounced regarding his younger (pre-literate or semi-literate) readers.
Campe warned against giving such children Robinson der Jüngere as reading practice, as struggling readers could easily develop a distaste for the moral and religious content of the story—and even attempt to emulate Robinson’s bad example and run away from home themselves (Brüggemann and Ewers 217). This concern is perhaps more understandable if one takes into account the proliferation of pedagogically threadbare, picaresque Robinsons flooding the market at the time. The mobilization of fantasy toward
the exotic was rightly viewed as much more compelling than any well-intentioned
attempt to curtail it. As Suzanne Zantop writes,
Krusoe’s story then is the true colonial legacy; it fires up the imagination and creates desire—a desire for adventure,
53 “für den zeitgenössischen Leser scheint der Robinson zunächst einmal eine Ausbruch-Geschichte gewesen zu sein” (225). 75 a desire for the exotic, a desire for a utopian island, for a place where one can rule according to one’s own dictates, free from paternal rule, where one can work with docile natives, or shoot those who refuse to give up their territories or savage ways. (115-116)
Campe’s concern to distance his work from this type of reception—from
contributing to the flood54 of filth that he decries in his preface—informs nearly every aspect of Robinson der Jüngere. The adventure elements are suppressed at every turn, most subtly, Brüggemann and Ewers suggest, by less direct, diegetic means: “The laboriously staged distancing of the frame-narrative children from Robinson in the novel’s first episode can only be intended to prevent young readers from identifying with
Robinson’s desire for travel and adventure, and from imitating his flight from the family home with gusto” (225).55 The reactions of the child listeners also play an important role
in guiding the reader toward particular affective conclusions: “their rejections or
agreements are what influence and guide the reader; [even] if the father always follows
the childrens’ judgments with a confirmation or correction” (223).56 By proffering
diegetic children as reader surrogates, Campe attempts to avoid early reader identification
54 One of the recurring themes in this context is a paradigmatic shift in reading practices. In Der Bürger als Leser, Rolf Engelsing characterizes the late eighteenth-century Lesesuchtdebatte as a struggle to come to terms with the change from intensive to extensive reading tendencies, from the exact, close reading of a few select texts towards the more casual, one-time consumption of a literary work. In an ever expanding, consumer literary economy, stimulating and adventurous robinsonades readily lent themselves to the latter mode of reading. Though Campe’s collected Jugendschriften would later contain dozens of travel narratives, Robinson der Jüngere clearly attempts to (re)infuse what was becoming a highly extensive genre with intensive value. 55 “Die sehr aufwendig inszenierte Distanzierung der Kinder der Rahmenerzählung von Robinson in der ersten Romanepisode kann nur den Sinn haben, zu verhindern, dass die jungen Leser sich mit der Reise- und Abenteuerlust Robinsons identifizieren und den Ausbruch aus dem Elternhaus lustvoll nacherleben” (225). 56 “Ihre Ablehnungen oder Zustimmungen sind es, die den Leser beeinflussen und lenken; vom Vater geht allenfalls eine nachträgliche Bestätigung oder Korrektur der Urteile der Kinder aus” (223). 76 with the negative role model of Robinson. Only once the frame narrative’s children
(guided by their father) begin to admire Robinson’s repentance, resourcefulness, and industry, does the main character become a potential identification figure for the child reader.
Beyond modeling appropriate affective responses, imitation plays a decisive role in defining the child reader’s interaction with Robinson’s world beyond the text. For example, the narrator suggests real-world craft projects for readers—such as reproducing
Robinson’s umbrella, washing shirts, or learning rudimentary basket weaving. In other instances, child readers are encouraged to write, revise, and review one another’s letters to Robinson. Finally, the narrator entertains the idea of taking the children on a field trip to a factory site in Hamburg in order to observe the real-life production of finished goods.
Above all, Campe encourages his readers to follow the guidelines of his own children and continue discussing the story after each reading.
If these “soft” tactics are unsuccessful, the father-narrator’s guidance in Robinson der Jüngere propels the children toward a carefully controlled or—to borrow Elke
Liebs’s term—prophylactic mode of second-hand experience, one that eliminates the very conditions for unnecessary, or excessive, meaning to appear. In Necessary Luxuries,
Matt Erlin claims that this is Campe’s most fundamental concern in Robinson der
Jüngere. In Erlin’s analysis, Campe’s crusade against insincere sentimentality (which can develop through the abuse of literary metaphor) reflects his underlying fear of what
Hans-Christoph Koller describes as an autonomization of fantasy (361). Viewed against the backdrop of surplus literary production, the autonomization of fantasy threatens to 77 detach (child) readers from concrete social and emotional contexts. In Erlin’s view,
Campe’s fear of this fetishization underlines every aspect of the author’s literary practice in Robinson der Jüngere. His main concern, Erlin claims, is the independent circulation
(economy) of objects relative to their producers, which prompts Campe to go to great lengths to “reattach the contexts of production and consumption” (366). Erlin further claims that, “to the extent that the sensuous and imaginative pleasures of luxury consumption—whether of books or of goods—give rise to fantasies of modest improvement, these pleasures can be seen to drive socially desirable behaviors. Too much stimulation of the senses and the imagination, however, and the system threatens to spin out of control” (13). By resolutely upholding the value of productive labor within a well- defined system of bourgeois values, Campe prevents excessive or undesirable desire for adventure (Abenteuerlust) from emerging in and from his text (Apgar 5).
As the above overview of Campe scholarship suggests, the success or failure of the author’s pedagogical program in Robinson der Jüngere hinges primarily on the containment of excessive literary affect and unbridled fantasy through the structural and psychological control of the reader and the reading process. However, as much as his text intentionally provides its child readers with controlled access to adventure, neither the author himself nor his scholarly commentators57 appear to have considered the effects of
57 David Blewett and Jens Thiele have both explored the various trends in historical Robinson illustration, but their focus remains predominately on English and French, and German (respectively) editions of Defoe’s original. Reinhard Stach’s extensive collection of Robinson illustrations is beautifully catalogued in Maria Linsmann’s Robinson und Robinsonaden: die Sammlung Reinhard Stach (Troisdorf: Bilderbuchmuseum, 2012). While Thiele and Blewett consider the effects of scene/moment selection, pose/gesture, and environment against the backdrop of previous visualizations of the same text, they do not 78 visual accompaniments on the intended child reader’s engagement with the text and its
pedagogical program. As Jens Thiele notes of Robinson Crusoe illustrations,
Nearly independently of their artistic qualities, book illustrations retained and retain their fascination and magic; they were what unleashed fantasies while reading – of the accepted and the taboo, of the familiar and the foreign. Illustrations often inspired fantasies that were non-existent or only thinly veiled references in the text: the hero’s gaze, the room’s pompous furnishing, the magical chromaticity of the scene could produce fascination, fear, or longing and so acquire a lasting significance. (19)58
The following section presents a history of Robinson der Jüngere as told through
the fantastic, entertaining, and educational aspects of its illustrated editions. As this
dissertation is not purely a bibliography of illustrated editions, I make no attempt to
present an exhaustive register59 of such works. As stated in Chapter 2, my goal here is
neither to make definitive claims about how illustrations work nor to present broad
conclusions about the qualitative or quantitative differences between the visual (book)
cultures of different epochs, rather it is simply to explore open questions about the
relationship between a text, its illustrations, and its readers over time. How do the
generally treat with Campe’s Robinson or even touch the adjacent, often overlapping genre of adventure literature. 58 “Fast unabhängig von ihrer bildnerischen Qualitäten behielten und behalten die Buchillustrationen ihre Faszination und Magie; sie waren es ja, die beim Lesen Phantasien freisetzten über Erlaubtes und Unerlaubtes, über Vertrautes und Fremdes. Oft gestatten die Illustrationen überhaupt erst Phantasien, die im Text nur versteckt angedeutet oder gar nicht existent waren: der Blick des Helden, die pompöse Einrichtung des Zimmers, die magische Farbigkeit der Szene konnten Betroffenheit, Faszination, Furcht oder Sehnsucht auslösen und so eine anhaltende Bedeutung erhalten” (19). 59 For extensive registers of (illustrated and non-illustrated) robinsonades, see Johann Christian Ludwig Haken’s Bibliothek der Robinsone (1805), Hermann Ullrich’s Robinson und Robinsonaden: Bibliographie, Geschichte, Kritik (1898), or—more recently—Reinhard Stach and Jutta Schmidt’s Robinson und Robinsonaden in der deutschsprachigen Literatur (1991). 79 illustrations interact with the (child) reader? How do they behave in a specific generic context—what are the trends that create or challenge reader expectations? Finally—and most importantly for this chapter—how far can they bend a text over time toward ever- changing new contexts before it becomes something new?
VISUAL ACCOMPANIMENTS: PART OF THE PROGRAM?
As the success of Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere grew, so too did the number of reproductions, adaptations, and continuations seeking to exploit it. Only a few years after its initial publication, other publishing houses in Germany and across Europe began selling various “unauthorized” versions alongside the authorized editions produced in
Braunschweig by Campe’s own Schulbuchverlag (later Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn). In particular, two domestic publishers—one anonymous, with production based in Frankfurt
& Leipzig, the other J. J. Mäcken in Reutlingen—continued printing their own editions for decades following the text’s initial publication in 1779/80.
While the narrative content in authorized editions remained unaltered over the years, the visual component of the text changed significantly over time. An overview of early, authorized editions shows three overlapping phases of the narrative’s visual interpretation, introduced in the first (1779), twelfth (1816), and fortieth (1848) editions of Robinson der Jüngere. The 1779/80 publication—sparingly accompanied by engraver
Daniel Chodowiecki’s iconic, wood-engraved frontispiece and a single, functional woodcut vignette of a steel plow—remained the sole authorized format for eleven
80 editions spanning more than three decades. For the fourth and ninth editions (1789 and
1807, respectively), the frontispiece was redesigned, but the overall composition and
content remained the same. In 1816, the frontispiece to the authorized version was again
updated and six additional images—perhaps, as I will argue below, not incidentally
depicting moments often selected in the growing canon of Robinson Crusoe
iconography—were added to illustrate the narrative. This edition supplanted the previous
format for a further three decades, until the release of the lavishly illustrated, fortieth-
anniversary edition in 1848. Commissioned by Campe’s son-in-law to commemorate the
ongoing success of the author’s seminal work, this 1848 luxury edition features fifty-two
images by the renowned Romantic artist and engraver Adrian Ludwig Richter, and
remained the official authorized edition of the text until 1912, when Willy Planck’s
modern, illustrated edition of the Loewe Verlag’s Robinson. A Reader for Children by J.
H. Campe (Robinson. Ein Lesebuch für Kinder von J. H. Campe) was first released.
The development of unauthorized, illustrated editions in Frankfurt, Leipzig, and
Reutlingen follows a similar pattern of visual expansion in the early decades of the
nineteenth century. For example, the first edition published in Frankfurt am Main
(1781)60 featured four illustrations: a rendition of the authorized frontispiece and three
(presumably) stock woodcuts. Published in 1827, J. J. Mäcken’s “most recent edition”
(Ausgabe der letzten Hand) featured twelve hand-colored illustrations that presented
Robinson as an extremely dynamic, vibrant hero. Others imported, imitated, or
60 In the preface to his second edition, Campe specifically mentions this unauthorized Raubdruck and emphasizes the superiority (through various improvements, corrections, and expansions) of his new, revised edition. 81 shamelessly lifted illustrations from well-known engravers like Jean-Jacques Grandville, the famous French illustrator who had provided nearly 200 lavish images for Les aventures de Robinson Crusoe (1840).
Generally speaking, the quantity and quality of illustrations in Robinson der
Jüngere—as well as that of competing, illustrated editions—increased steadily throughout the nineteenth century in relation to a relatively static text. This trend should not be overstated, but it must be accompanied by a word of caution. As Julia Thomas notes in Pictorial Victorians, “the pictures do not ‘tie down’ or ‘confine’ the meaning of the text, but, by emphasizing one particular interpretation, have the capacity to make the viewer aware of others” (14). This holds for Campe’s Robinson too—each edition’s visual appearance suggests new interpretations and associations for the text that, from a longer view of the early nineteenth century, may appear as part of an inevitable march from the extreme poles of education to entertainment. In the following sections, it is important to remember that many of these editions were in circulation at the same time, and that all illustrated editions of Robinson der Jüngere competed with unadorned versions of the text.
Robinson der Jüngere from 1779–1816
Unadorned is perhaps the most apt description of early editions of Campe’s book.
It is also perhaps the least surprising given the purity of his pedagogical program. Matt
Erlin reminds us that each individual element of the text
82 exists in a wholly transparent relationship to Campe’s general pedagogical intent. This insistence on a complete functionalization of the narrative provides the context for understanding his decision to jettison large sections of the original as ‘tedious, superfluous twaddle’—in other words, as unnecessary surplus. Any ornamentation that interferes with utility must be removed. (Necessary Luxuries, 130)
Visual hints of “tedious, superfluous twaddle” are conspicuously absent from Robinson der Jüngere. The first of two illustrations to appear in the 1779 publication was an etched frontispiece (see Fig. 1) by Daniel Chodowiecki.61 It acts as a poignant, paratextual intervention that privileges and performs the first of Campe’s intended modes of reading: oral narration by an adult to a child or group of children. Compositionally, the image is dominated by the foreground—the father-narrator, his students, and the apple tree replete with map. The extreme proximity of the group deprives the illustration of depth—aside from the outlines of bushes, clouds, and the suggestion of a body of water, the middle and background appear as a flat, superfluous backdrop. Although we are informed that the frame narrative is set in Campe’s own Hamburg (a fact which the family’s contemporary
European dress lends additional credence to), the location of this educational moment is not visually important, only the hierarchical relationship of its participants. Both the dominant vertical line of the tree trunk and the horizontal lines of the river horizon (the
Elbe) and the row of children’s heads accentuate this by directing the viewer’s eye to the compositional center of the work: the space where the father-narrator and eldest child’s gaze meet. The illustration’s composition thus points to the Socratic dialogue between
61 Chodowiecki had previously been recruited by Basedow to illustrate his Elementarwerk in 1774. 83 father (teacher) and children (pupils) as the focal point of the image and—by extension— the entire narrative.
Several strategically deployed symbols allude to the importance of this mentor- pupil relationship. The tree—the primary landscape feature at the “scene” of learning—is a common reference to vivacity and growth, while the map both leads to the proper destination and evokes common travel themes: navigation, adventure, distance. Together with the paterfamilias’s posture as judge and arbiter of goodness and morality, the scene suggests to the reader that obedient attention to the father-narrator is the best guide to healthy moral and social development.62
The only other visual accompaniment to the text—a thumb-sized vignette of a plow (Fig. 39)—is integrated directly into the frame narrative’s dialogue and visually reinforces his (implied) presence. When the children ask what Robinson’s primitive plow looks like, the father-narrator quickly sketches the object on a scrap of paper and presents the image as a visual artifact. The text explicitly stages this presentation, such that the image cannot fail to accompany the unedited narrative without drawing attention to its absence.63 In this respect, the artifactual relationship between text and image is similar to
the craft project of creating the umbrella—the object is described in the text, but is
presumed to be so unusual to the average child reader that it must either be visually
62 This is not as far-fetched as it may seem: the physical placement of the figures is nearly identical to an earlier Chodowiecki illustration from Basedow’s Gesangbuch des Philanthrops zu Dessau (vol. 2, 1781) depicting the Sermon on the Mount, with the narrator mimicking the posture and position of Christ. According to Melanie Ehler, it appears to be an intentional allusion by the illustrator. 63 This unremarkable woodcut is the only image that appears in every edition of the unaltered narrative. 84 depicted or physically constructed to ensure comprehension. Both instances further
extend the father-narrator’s influence beyond the text and into its (implied) usage.
By highlighting only this relationship and omitting any depiction of the persons,
places, or events in the Robinson episodes, Chodowiecki’s illustration strengthens the
narrator’s role as the sole source of authority in the text. In this edition, the prefatory
reading instructions are modeled by the text’s own internal frame narrative and
punctuated by the visual complement: all three elements work congruently to model the
ideal teacher-pupil (and father-child) relationship and encourage identification with the
obedient, diegetic child listeners. In doing so, this image helps the author maintain tight
control over the “reading” of the Robinson story. As Matt Erlin suggests, “Campe’s work
resembles the utilitarian objects that it celebrates to the extent that it seeks to maximize
the degree of clarity characterizing the relationship between structure and function, between the object and its intended use” (Necessary Luxuries, 130). Though realized slightly differently, the frontispieces to the 1779/80, 1789, and 1807 authorized editions
(see Figs. 1, 3, 4)—as well as the 1781 Frankfurt & Leipzig Raubdruck (see Fig. 2)—
each accentuates the text’s intended use.
This was not an uncommon use of illustration at the time. While eighteenth-
century frontispieces often appear to be tasked with visually ushering the reader into the
world of the text, they also tend to cleave to a narrow set of established rhetorical
strategies. Arches, porticos, doors, and other portals welcomed readers into neoclassical
dramas; presentations of climactic stage scenes offered glimpses of the emotional
potential of contemporary drama; and portraits of well-known authors reassured readers 85 that they were embarking into the realms of literary genius. Early textbooks also prefaced
their lessons with reading scenes. In stark contrast to this rhetorical subtlety, however, the
titular figure of Robinson had dominated frontispieces to eighteenth-century
robinsonades since the first edition of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.
Given the predominance of the Robinson figure in the early, international visual
iconography of Robinson Crusoe, Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere appears similarly jarring. As noted above, the choice of the educational framing device as frontispiece not only highlights the text’s educational agenda, but it visually aligns Campe’s adaptation
with its contemporary, child-literary peers—specifically etiquette books—and rejects the
conventions typical of Robinsonades.64 This particular peculiarity was relatively short- lived: while Robinson der Jüngere’s textual narrative retained both its uniqueness and rigidity over time, its visual composition maintained neither of the two. The following explores how authorized editions of Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere appear to respond and correspond to broader, Western European trends in Robinson Crusoe illustration at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
In his historical overview of (predominantly) French and English robinsonades,
The Illustration of Robinson Crusoe, David Blewett highlights the influence of a few early European illustrators on the development of an iconographic Crusoe canon during the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Clark and Pine’s frontispiece for the initial
64 Only a few unauthorized editions substituted alternate frontispieces at this stage of the work’s reception. For example Trattner’s 1789 edition (published in Linz and Vienna), uses a generic copperplate of a ship at sea as the frontispiece to their first publication of Robinson der Jüngere. The text is further embellished with a variety of simple arabesque borders, a low-risk attempt to increase its appeal without having to pay for new designs. 86 1719 publication of Robinson Crusoe established perhaps the most enduring Robinson
image—a full-length portrait of the hero dressed in animal skins and a broad-brimmed
straw hat, his tools (in this case two rifles) slung casually over his shoulder. Additional
illustrations followed the very next year, when French engraver Bernard Picart designed
six illustrations emphasizing the moral and spiritual development of the protagonist.
Thematically, they follow the spiritual progression of the prodigal Robinson: his
disobedience, punishment, conversion, and ultimately his deliverance (33). These images
and their moral agenda remained the norm in Anglo- and Francophone Crusoe illustration
for over sixty years.
Much as Campe’s text represented a departure from Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe,
the quantity and overall emphasis of Crusoe illustration changed dramatically following
the text’s reception by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Blewett notes that late-century English
illustrations tended to portray Robinson as a sympathetic everyman struggling to survive,
while comparable French illustrations of Robinson Crusoe—like Clement Pierre
Marillier’s engravings for the 1786 edition—accentuated Robinson’s self-reliance and
elevated Crusoe to heroic status (37). Thomas Stothard’s 1781 edition used playful,
imaginative compositions to restimulate interest in the story, and John Stockdale’s 1790
edition focused its visual attention on the island’s exotic flora and fauna.65 Blewett notes that most Anglo- and Francophone Crusoe editions picked up on this theme by the beginning of the nineteenth century, and aimed to maximize “authentic tropical detail”
65 This edition may also be the first to depict Friday as a noble savage. 87 (76). Charles Pancoucke’s 1799 edition reused Stothard’s designs and reduced the
tendency, after Rousseau, to exclude all but the insular moments of the Robinson story.
Each of these editions develops distinct visual interpretations of Defoe’s
narrative, but they all share a common tendency: an assertive move away from the early
emphasis on moral instruction (one that would, perhaps, resonate more strongly with
contemporary readers of Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress) and towards a closer
identification with the immediate experience of the protagonist in nature (Blewett 52).
Editions in the 1830s expanded the appeal of Robinson Crusoe as an exotic, adventure
story with a heroic protagonist.66 According to Blewett, “most nineteenth-century
illustration of the novel, increasingly fascinated with the exotic elements in Crusoe, was
to follow this lead” (60). The apex of this trend toward a Romantic Robinson was reached
in 1840 with the aforementioned Jean-Jacques Grandville’s Les aventures de Robinson
Crusoe, which featured hundreds67 of wood-engraved vignettes that portrayed the protagonist as a lonely outcast by nature, surviving against all odds. The reader, like
Robinson, is flooded by a deluge of visualized, existential threats, and has little opportunity to reflect on (much less condemn) the protagonist’s spiritual condition until the immediate danger has subsided.
In sum, the development of Robinson Crusoe illustration begins with the stark assertion of Robinson as a singular figure (Clark and Pine, 1719), then diverges into
66 Some exploited this tendency for comedic appeal – the exaggerated gestures and pantomime expressions in an 1831 edition illustrated by George Cruikshank (of Dickensian fame) poked fun at the novel’s melodramatic moments. 67 The exact number is difficult to pin down due to the rapid spread of the images. In German and French editions, I have seen feature anywhere from 84 to more than 200 illustrations (in intact copies), but most of the title pages do not provide a total count, much less a list, of illustrations – even of the plates. 88 portrayals of the character as: a) the redeemed hero in his own spiritual autobiography, b)
the self-confident, proto-capitalist conqueror (Ian Watt’s homo economicus); and c) the
ultimate survivor clad in wild skins. Over time, specific narrative moments—Robinson
after the shipwreck, building the cave, finding the footprint, saving Friday, and returning
home—took hold of the popular imagination and became indelibly associated with the
Robinson Crusoe story.68 The primary distinctions between illustrated editions shifted
from the subject of illustration (e.g., the moments of choice), to its interpretation.
In a similar manner to Robinson Crusoe, the narrative content of Robinson der
Jüngere remained largely unaltered over time despite a proliferation of adaptations,
continuations, and illustrated editions. However, while the textual narrative retained its
uniqueness and rigidity in nearly all cases until at least the middle of the nineteenth
century,69 its visual narrative quickly abandoned both. With time, authorized editions of
Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere began to respond to the broader, Western European trends in Crusoe illustration that Blewett and others identify at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
68 For an excellent comprehensive list, see Blewett’s The Illustration of Robinson Crusoe and Stach, Robinsonaden: Bestseller der Jugendliteratur. 69 The majority of unauthorized editions, adaptations, and sequels jettisoned the frame narrative completely by the middle of the century, replacing the evening reading episode with conventional chapter divisions and shifting to an uninterrupted, third-person narrative perspective. Only the authorized edition preserved the structural, pedagogical mechanisms of the 1779/80 original. 89 Robinson der Jüngere from 1816–1848
The twelfth authorized edition of 1816 begins with the same frontispiece as the
1807 edition (compare Figs. 4 and 5). This rendition reproduces the primary 1779/80 scene, with the minor addition of a few more background details. However, that frontispiece is accompanied by six additional wood engravings (see Figs. 6-11). These include Robinson: thanking God for delivering him from the storm and shipwreck (see
Fig. 6), in the cave with his llama companions (see Fig. 7), with his llama discovering the footprints among human bones (see Fig. 8), accepting Friday’s tribute after saving him from his pursuers (see Fig. 9), with the Spaniard looking on as Friday comforts his father
Thursday (see Fig. 10), and boarding the English ship back home to Europe (see Fig. 11).
The images were designed and drawn by the German genre-painter Franz Ludwig Catel, who was living in Rome at the time, and engraved in copper by the French engraver
Ambroise Tardieu. At the time, Catel was a relatively unproven artist, but Tardieu came from a family of celebrated engravers and was himself known as a talented cartographer.
What is immediately striking about these images is Robinson’s placement, posture, and prominence. In five of the six images, he is the visual locus of the image and—with the possible exception of Fig. 6, where his body is positioned diagonally—he is always depicted in an extreme, vertical posture. Again, with the exception of Fig. 6— where Robinson’s face is uplifted toward heaven in an attitude somewhere between praise and lament—he is always depicted as looking downward from a position of authority, dominance, and control. After recovering from his initial plight, he becomes the master of his fate and assumes the almost God-like posture of the benevolent arbiter, 90 his unchanged and unaffected features calmly assessing all before him: from his material
situation (see Fig. 7), the presence of an unknown, human other on the island (see Fig. 8);
the service of the “noble savage” Friday (see Fig. 9), the touching scene of Friday and his
father on the beach (see Fig. 10), and the entire island and its inhabitants (see Fig. 11).
This version of Robinson is in control, the conqueror and ruler of his desert island.
Though the visual narrative begins by reasserting the pedagogical frame—and the text
maintains its very gradual warming to the protagonist—there can be little doubt as to who
the visual focal point of this edition is.
The selection of scenes in this edition is clearly indebted to the burgeoning
reservoir of Crusoe illustrations, but the depiction of its protagonists is strikingly
different. Robinson’s physical appearance is particularly notable: in most cases (four of
the seven), the illustrations depict him in European clothing, while only two take outfit
him in his island garb. Neither of these adopts the iconic, Anglophone form of Clark and
Pine’s straw hat.70 Friday is similarly depicted in two stylistic modes: once in the scene of
his subjugation as a clearly native other, once as a European or noble savage (e.g., using
the same physiognomic contours as Robinson, but with a darker skin tone—a strategy
commonly used by contemporary artists to distinguish between good and bad natives).71
The 1827 “most recent edition” from J. J. Mäcken in Reutlingen pulled the text in
a thematically similar if stylistically divergent direction. The twelve hand-colored
70 Furthermore, Robinson’s blue jacket and yellow waistcoat combination is likely an allusion to Goethe’s foolish hero Werther – or the popular, lowbrow comedic figure Hanswurst. 71 More skilled wood engravers alternate between crosshatching and white-line wood engraving to represent Friday and other natives’ darker skin tone. The white-line technique (in which the non-printed, white lines delineate figures) results in a much darker—and also much more visually pronounced—result. 91 illustrations for Robinson der Jüngere: Ein Lesebuch für Kinder recreate many of the canonical scenes: Robinson praying on the rocks (Fig. 12), improving his cave dwelling
(Fig. 13), returning to the cave with his prize turtle (Fig. 14), capturing a llama (Fig. 15), fleeing the eruption (Fig. 16), raising the flag (Fig. 17), killing Friday’s savage pursuers
(Fig. 18), firing his rifle in front of an awestruck Friday (Fig. 19), boarding the ship to return home (Fig. 20), and embracing his father (Fig. 21). The restricted use of perspective, as well as the spatial prominence of the figures and their specific attire, evokes an Early Modern stylistic sensibility.
Generally speaking, after the initial wave of imitators had subsided, the beginning of the nineteenth century saw relatively few new unauthorized editions of the text.
Changing literary-aesthetic preferences, the availability of new and more authentic explorations of the exotic (especially in newspapers and magazines), and nearly two decades of war across the Continent each provide compelling explanations for this trend, but the most likely is simply the growing availability and popularity of similar travel and adventure narratives written for a youth audience.
Many of these used Campe’s novel as direct inspiration for robinsonades of their own. For example, Ernst August Geitner (1809), Luise Hölder (1821), and Franz Xaver
Geiger (1837), and each published direct continuations of Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere in which the protagonist returns to transform the desert island’s utopian potential into a functioning, real-world colony. Others built on the success of Robinson der Jüngere in more inventive ways. Johann David Wyss’ The Swiss Family Robinson (Der
Schweizerische Robinson), the first family robinsonade, was published in 1812 to great 92 acclaim. It took characters similar to those in Campe’s frame narrative and transformed them into the marooned survivors. In 1841, Captain Frederick Marryat’s Masterman
Ready (Sigismund Rüstig) split the father-narrator role between the bourgeois biological paterfamilias and an experienced, lower-class midshipman and further pushed the narrative from utopian experiment toward travel narrative by adding authoritative details from his own extensive naval career. Editions of his work are examined in detail in the following chapter.
As each of these adaptations and continuations present new takes on the insular narrative, their deployment of the storytelling moment shifts. The frontispiece to an 1827 edition of Luise Hölder’s Robinson the Younger’s Return to his Island in the Company of his Children (Rückreise Robinsons des Jüngern nach seinem Eilande in Begleitung seiner
Kinder) playfully borrows the arrangement of the canonical Robinson der Jüngere frontispiece, but remodels the familial scene around domestic luxuries (a table with chairs, house, and fine clothing) that suggest a more leisurely and conventional educational program. In the twelfth authorized edition, as with others of this time period, the “primal pedagogical scene” from the Chodowiecki frontispiece is visually present, but has lost much of its prominence. With this as with other versions, the reader is presented with a wider array of visual anchors for affective attachment, most of which feature a dynamic, sympathetic, and simply much more entertaining protagonist at the heights and depths of his struggle for survival.
93 Robinson der Jüngere from 1848–1870
In the four decades since Robinson der Jüngere had first been published, much
had changed72 in the publishing industry. Campe’s grandson Friedrich Vieweg, the new
proprietor of the Schulbuchhandlung (now entitled Vieweg and Sons), wanted to make a
splash, and found a golden opportunity to both celebrate the publisher’s Enlightenment
heritage and tap into the prevailing visual trends. In 1847—to commemorate his
grandfather’s one-hundredth birthday and the ongoing commercial success of his literary
oeuvre—Vieweg commissioned Adrian Ludwig Richter to illustrate the fortieth
authorized edition73 of Robinson der Jüngere.
Book and illustration historian John Harthan describes him as the leading
exponent of “idyllic, popular, sentimental manner characteristic of German Romanticism
in its later stages” (188). One of the most accomplished German wood-engravers of his
time, Richter had built his reputation illustrating popular children’s books—his work on
J. K. A. Musäus’s German Folk Tales (Volksmärchen der Deutschen, 1842) remains his
most successful. Richter’s sentimental style cast a rosy, nostalgic aura about the story
(see esp. Figs. 25, 26, and 30)—a decidedly different emotional interpretation than most
adult Robinsonades chose to emphasize, but one that would align the text’s visual
narrative with the prevailing aesthetic of the most popular children’s literary genre: fairy
72 According to Regine Timm, the solo frontispiece was well on its way out by this time: “Hier gab es zwar mit Zeichnern wie Chodowiecki, Meil u. v. a. durchaus auch eine Vorgeschichte im 18. Jahrhundert, und das daran anschließende ‘Taschenbuchkupfer’ hat sich sporadisch auch bis gegen 1840 gehalten; aber es war eine absterbende Tradition, die für die eigentlichen Erfordernisse der Buchillustration der Folgezeit nicht fruchtbar gemacht werden konnte” (Timm 9). 73 After the success of Robinson led it to be adopted as a textbook by German schools in the early nineteenth century, the original subtitle changed to Ein Lesebuch für Kinder to reflect a new implied target audience. 94 tales. In other words, while more and more Robinsonades and adventure narratives deployed visual styles that leaned into pessimistic, post-Enlightenment themes of natural violence and intercultural conflict, Richter’s illustrations yearned for unsullied, utopian harmony.
In addition to the frontispiece (see Fig. 25) that he had already prepared for the thirty-ninth edition (released one year earlier), Richter produced 47 new illustrations (all wood-engravings) for the 1848 publication of Robinson der Jüngere. An overview of the selections reveals several interesting trends, most notably the prevalence of exotic animals (including eight images of llamas alone) and ethnic others (over half of the images depict Robinson with either Friday or Spanish castaways), as well as Robinson’s gear (both recovered and self-made). Richter’s illustrations remain largely congruent with the narrative content and seem, at first glance, to be focused solely on describing and illuminating otherwise rare or exotic objects or events (i.e., llamas, indigenous rituals, unfamiliar plants). Taken as a whole, Richter’s parallel visual narrative to Robinson der
Jüngere indulges the visual appetite of the reader, but remains firmly under the control of its textual frame—it augments the paternal narrator’s authority by providing compelling visual evidence for the existence (and amiability) of the island and its inhabitants.
In doing so, however, it introduces a visual source of authority that is not wholly under the father-narrator’s control. Although both the sole Chodowiecki copperplate and
Richter’s 48 large-sized xylographs (wood engravings) complement the text, their relationship differs in its degree as well as its focus: the former strongly asserts the paternalistic, moral-educational frame of the story, while the latter brings the internal, 95 narrative content of the Robinson adventure closer to the reader. This shift can be read as
either: a) a non-threatening affirmation of the established narrator-reader power
dynamic—the illustrations are visually compelling examples employed to the same
moral-pedagogical ends as their oral counterparts or b) an explicit indulgence in the very
type of fantastical content the father-narrator seeks to curtail—their visualizations of the
narrative content exceed their role as examples, creating a surplus of visual meaning that
extends beyond the control of the text itself. The former reading treats the parallel visual
narrative as a mere extension of the narrator’s control (a series of elaborative
interventions that augment the text), the latter sees it as an ambivalent force that has the
potential to transcend it.
As detailed depictions of the narrative content, the images can be viewed as
unproblematic examples that augment the father-narrator’s authority. For example, the lines of all of the border elements in the title image (Fig. 22)—Robinson’s vertically aligned spear, the animals’ inwardly directed gaze, and the diagonal stems and foliage of
the local flora—guide the viewer away from the fascinating details toward the title and
author. Similarly, the frontispiece (Fig. 25) uses compositional lines to direct focus from
the exotic, imaginative setting toward the figure of Robinson himself. The cloud, cave
opening, hanging ivy, llamas, and even Robinson’s own diagonally aligned arm guide the
viewer toward his contented face—toward his positive relation to the llamas as pets and
companions. Finally, Richter’s reproduction of Chodowiecki’s reading scene beneath the
tree (Fig. 23) strengthens the teacher-student conversation as the focal node of the
illustration—in this version, all of the children are spellbound by the father-narrator’s 96 voice. This version also emphasizes the teaching moment as an engaging family activity—even the roughly sketched adults in the background seem interested in what the paterfamilias has to say.
Compositionally, each of these illustrations can be said to be extensions of
Campe’s pedagogical program, using the interest generated by fantastical natural objects to direct the viewer toward the appropriate focal point to establish the hierarchy of the whole image. The selection of illustrations also seems to support this view—visual descriptions of foreign subjects present the exotic unknown with both a comfort and conciseness unattainable through language alone (and without recourse to unreliable literary devices). From this perspective, Richter’s parallel visual narrative remains utterly beholden to Campe’s narrator, a series of poignant examples employed to serve his moral-pedagogical ends.
The danger of using these examples is that they have the potential to overexcite the reader’s imagination in precisely the manner Campe so avidly seeks to avoid. While
Richter’s illustrations use line to establish compositional foci that seem to support
Campe’s moral aims, the weight, tone and background detail in each of the examples mentioned encourage the viewer to return to the “peripheral elements” in each case.
Pausing to explore and reflect on the image, as an independent child reader would be at leisure to do, decenters and diffuses the viewer’s focus from the hierarchized center toward the fantastic details, settings, and other visual adornments present in Richter’s compositions. Thus in contrast to the superficial, flat immediacy of Chodowiecki’s frontispiece (Fig. 1) that stifles sustained curiosity, Richter’s attention to detail lends his 97 illustrations a level of depth that invites the viewer into the physical and emotional
environment of Robinson’s island.
Perhaps most telling is the illustration chosen for the frontispiece (Fig. 25)—
Robinson feeding the llamas. Instead of the ideal Enlightenment family striving towards
self-improvement through the guidance of the paterfamilias (Fig. 23), we see Robinson with his loyal pets—a peaceful and enviable scene that focuses the viewer on the figure of Robinson in the island space. Following the composition lines back out from the protagonist’s face, the viewer is drawn to the figures of the llamas, the foreground foliage, the dark gash of the cave entrance, and, finally, out into the background horizon.
A light source illuminates the scene from the upper left, adding another layer of depth and suggesting natural influences from beyond the immediate visual frame.
While the frontispiece focuses on a few central figures, the title image (Fig. 22) is nearly overwhelmed by the mass of flora and fauna of Robinson’s island that threaten to engulf the title and author. The heavy weight and tone of this composition is particularly skewed in favor of the tropical environment, which is significantly darker than the white rock face. There are so many minute details for the viewer to lose herself in, that the central stone “placard” quickly transforms from a focal point to a sort of unavoidable negative space, or a hole in the otherwise busy life of the jungle setting.
Even the family reading scene (Fig. 23), a nearly identical reproduction of
Chodowiecki’s 1779 etching, widens the visual field beyond the foreground (father, mother, and children) to include the contours of several onlookers, a house, and even the twin towers of a distant cathedral receding far into the background. Whereas the 1779 98 version takes place in a contextual vacuum where the location of the lesson is irrelevant to the composition, these rough sketches suggest a “real” European context beyond the immediacy of the lesson. Though the people in the image are focused on the pedagogical dialogue, the contrast created by the shading on the tree and bushes also draws the eye toward the inanimate objects in the middle ground: the map nailed to the tree, the watering can, and the basket. Thus while everyone else is focused on teacher, the viewer is invited to wander in, around, and beyond the familiar garden setting.
Ludwig Richter’s explorations into the broader contexts and environments of
Robinson der Jüngere develop a fundamentally different attitude to Campe’s text than
Chodowiecki’s—and those of any other adaptation in the iconographic history of
Robinson Crusoe. While some elements of Richter’s illustrations seem to support the authority of the father-narrator, the large number of images offers enticing opportunities to pause and meander the fantastical borders of the narrative, away from the focalizing lenses of practical knowledge and paternal moral imperatives. This sometimes occurs as a means to downplay violence (see Fig. 28, which provides an encyclopedic sketch of a llama at the moment when the frame characters are discussing the morality of slaughtering it). However, even the very concept of violence seems out of place here (see
Robinson’s peaceful attitude in Fig. 24, idealized recovery in Fig. 26, and pantomime shock at discovering the bone in Fig. 27)—the island is a benign sanctuary, a safe, beautiful space for enjoying the simple pleasures in life. The visual story the illustrations tell remains tethered to the content of the narrative dialogue, but they frequently meander off into daydreams of something else. As a reader, one may be hard-pressed to resist the 99 temptation to follow Robinson’s example—if surviving for months alone on a desert island looks this enjoyable, then why all the fuss?
This sentiment remained popular over time—the commemorative authorized edition remained in print continuously for over 77 editions until 1894 (Wackermann 50).
The sustained success of the text’s pedagogical approach is extremely unusual. Over sixty years, the authorized text and program of Robinson der Jüngere had resisted change as the travel adventure genre began to market itself towards a younger reader demographic as intentional children’s literature. Yet as generations of pedagogically re- tooled adventures slowly chipped away at the Robinsonade’s exclusive claim on “good” adventure, the integrity of Campe’s narrative began to weaken at its visual seams.
Subsequent nineteenth-century editions from Vieweg made few changes to the content of the text and instead focused on marketing the illustrated Robinson to a wider variety of audiences: the 1888 “inexpensive” edition sold for one German Mark, a completely un- illustrated edition returned in 1894, and the deluxe 100-year anniversary edition of 1896 cost a whopping four and a half marks (Verlagskatalog 60–61). However, new editions— both authorized and unauthorized— began to incorporate elements borrowed from the constantly expanding international corpus of illustrated Robinsonades and abandoned the staid conventions of Enlightenment etiquette manuals. Beginning in the 1860s and 1870s, the binding and presentation of unauthorized editions of Robinson der Jüngere started to resemble those of their adventure counterparts, marketing the well-worn story in covers awash with violent encounters vividly rendered in garish colors.
100 This last trend was accompanied by gradual encroachments into the text itself, ranging in scope from the standard editorial pruning that accompanied each successive authorized edition, to the complete eradication of the entire narrative frame. The latter tendency was especially common in children’s adaptations, where concerns for a text’s overall length, language, and affordability guided editorial practice. This phenomenon only increased in the latter half of the nineteenth-century as costs fell and printing capacities rose. Many late-nineteenth-century editions—such as Bardtenschlager’s
Robinson Crusoe: An Instructive and Entertaining Narrative for Young People (Robinson
Krusoe: Eine lehrreiche und unterhaltende Erzählung für die Jugend, 1890)—completely abandon the Philanthropist’s framing narrative in favor of a conventional retelling of the
Robinson story. This same trend held for most other editions printed after 1870, and
Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere—or at least some parts of it—frequently lived second and third lives in unlikely guises.
CONCLUSION
Robinson Crusoe promises adventure, but largely withholds it: it is, in the words of Kevin Carpenter, “an adventure novel without an adventurer” (11). Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere is no exception to this tendency, but it is exceptional in its commitment to this principle. In both instances, however, the hue of adventure creeps back into the story through its visual accompaniments and eventually begins to tinge and influence the
101 textual narrative. Put another way, the tension between the work’s competing modes of
external focalization—the narrator and the illustration—is never resolved.
The visual history of Robinson der Jüngere reveals a fundamental shift in
interpretive focus, from pre-emptively suppressing adventure by reinforcing the
authoritarian teacher-student (father-child) relationship (the EF of the narrator) to
increasing desire by accentuating the exotic objects and contexts of the narrative itself
(the EF of the illustrator, which indulges individual CFs in a different manner). It also
indicates that the emphasis on consuming the text via communal, oral narration gradually
faded in favor of silent reading by a literate child reader—it transformed from an
Enlightenment-era instruction manual for the paterfamilias to read to his children into an
educational tool to be used for individual self-enrichment. In other words, the text’s
paternalistic attitude toward its reader was generally softened and visually reinterpreted
over time.74 However, the reluctance of the authorized text (in some respects a historical anomaly given the history of its publication rights) to adjust its underlying view of child reader expectations over the course of its lengthy commercial success(es) further widened the gap between real and imagined interactions with the book.75
In a way, it can be said that the visual history of the narrative mirrors the author’s own pedagogical growth model: “the father-narrator presents the progression from the
74 As Theodor Brüggemann notes, this was an historical necessity. Campe’s ideal reader reflects his aspirations for his pupils, not their actual needs or desires. This imagined entity is interested in real, practical things, is dedicated to the pursuit of virtue and reason, and has little room for art as “zweckfreies Spiel” (232). Of course, such an idealized construct often failed to correspond to the actual reader’s own interests in the text. 75 “Ihr konstruiertes Leserbild hat sich zu weit vom Kind als realem Leser mit seinen Bedürfnissen auch nach Spannung und Unterhaltung entfernt” (Brüggemann 232).
102 necessary to the ornamental as a universal law of human development, generalizing from
Robinson’s particular case to humanity at large” (Erlin, Necessary Luxuries 110). Having established itself as a foundational text of specific children’s literature—and as a particularly influential interpretation of the Robinson story—Robinson der Jüngere’s literary and pedagogical influence flowed out from the text and into a host of new adaptations and continuations. The text’s lasting commercial success cemented its pedagogical legacy. Once its ability to hold its own against countless imitators had been proven, it was empowered to attune its visual components to suit prevailing aesthetic proclivities. The anti-adventurous Robinson der Jüngere became one of the most prominent, long-term successes in German publishing history and a foundational text in the genre of specific youth adventure literature through a combination of narrative rigidity and visual fluidity, of prodesse and delectare.
103 CHAPTER 4
Reading Ready Robinsons: German Adaptations of Frederick
Marryat’s Masterman Ready (1841-1887)
INTRODUCTION
Campe’s success at the turn of the nineteenth-century inspired numerous
adaptations, continuations, and revisitations across the Continent—and across the
channel. Most of these did not repeat his work’s enduring commercial success and merely
sought to bask in the glow of Robinson’s (and Campe’s) fame and notoriety.76 However,
Johann David Wyß’s The Swiss Family Robinson (Schweizersche Robinson), released in
three volumes between 1812–13, remains—after Defoe—perhaps the most recognizable
robinsonade ever published in English. A family, or group robinsonade
(Gruppenrobinsonade—Ullrich’s term), Wyß’s novel transported Campe’s family of
active listeners to the island space, where they survived to be rescued through a familiar
combination of hard work, determination, and God-fearing piety.
Wyß’s novel was as successful in England as it was on the Continent, and joined
Campe’s Robinson the Younger on the short but growing list of successful and acceptable
adventures. In the early nineteenth century, much of a work’s success still rested on the
author’s reputation and moral credibility. Campe’s authority incorporated Pietistic
76 Elke Liebs explores the most prominent of these examples in her work, Die pädagogische Insel: Studien zur Rezeption des >Robinson Crusoe< in deutschen Jugendbuchbearbeitungen (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1977). The best-known include K. F. Lossius’ Gumal und Lina (1797/98), Christoph Hildebrandt’s Robinsons Colonie (1810), Luise Hölder’s Rückreise Robinsons (1827), and Gustav Gräbner’s Schulrobinson (1864). 104 religious views within his overarching pedagogical frame; Wyß’s moral authority came from his role as a pastor. The majority of children’s book authors at this time were either educators or members of the clergy—and often both. However, these and other publishing conventions were shifting in the decades immediately following the success of
The Swiss Family Robinson.
Britain was, in some respects, ahead of Germany in professionalizing all aspects of the children’s publishing industry. Andrea Immel notes that, “by the 1790s, it was possible in London to make a living primarily from selling children’s books, and shops catering to the needs of children, their parents and schools dotted the city by the early
1800s” (“Children’s Books and School-Books” 746). The same trend held for the artists, engravers, printers, and publishers who made use of every available process to meet rising demand for this new genre demographic. In particular, the growing children’s book industry fell in love with Thomas Bewick’s novel wood-engraving technique—which used the grain-end of the wood block to generate high-detail relief prints that could be reproduced cheaply in-line with the text—and the more painterly technique of lithography as the chosen means of visualizing their works.
These developments occurred at varying rates across Europe, but the general trajectory remained firmly towards trade professionalization. A trend that “national”
Germanophone children’s literature remained largely exempt from was one more common to the colonial powers: the phenomenon of the ex-soldier’s adventure story.77 In
77 There are, of course, several historical exceptions here – most notably Ulrich Schmidel’s Reise nach Süd-Amerika in den Jahren 1534 bis 1554, Hans Staden’s Wahrhaftige Historia, or Breydenbach’s Die 105 particular, many British naval officers wrote from their lifetime of experiences at sea
fighting for King and Country. While many, if not most, of these stories were set in real
colonial and/or conflict settings and therefore had limited national appeal (it is hard to
imagine, for example, that patriotic French or Spanish readers would enthusiastically
embrace Lord Nelson as a hero), some maritime adventures sought cross-over appeal
with the familiar, transnational genre of the Robinsonade. Frederick Marryat’s
Masterman Ready remains the most successful of these works.
FREDERICK MARRYAT’S MASTERMAN READY (1841-1842)
Marryat the Man
But who was Frederick Marryat? Unlike Wyß, whose Swiss Family Robinson
remains memorialized in book, film, and Disney theme-park form, Marryat’s work has
not withstood the wear of time. Outside of British naval museums and maritime
adventure collections, his name carries little weight today. However, in mid-century
Victorian England, he was an extremely well-known and well-connected public figure.
He travelled to America, gave public lectures, and became a close friend and mentor to
Charles Dickens; his works inspired such literary luminaries as Mark Twain, Joseph
Conrad, and Ernest Hemingway. His maritime novels were a smash-hit in his day:
according to one biographer, by the end of his life, Marryat’s most popular writings had
Reise ins Heilige Land. However, these all recount early, fifteenth-sixteenth-century encounters with non- Europeans – not national projects of consolidating, defending, or ruling colonial spaces. 106 netted him “something like £20,000,” or more than £1,000,000 in today’s terms (Pocock
171). And his success was not limited to Britain: as Klaus-Ulrich Pech notes, the
Heinrich Laube translation of Masterman Ready became the “most widespread
robinsonade in German-speaking Europe during the nineteenth century and experienced
numerous editions up through the present day” (156).78 Why then is he not treated as a canonical figure of British children’s literature?
One possible answer lies in the even greater acclaim of immediate literary successors, another, in his broad reception in Germany. Marryat’s domestic success inspired a new generation of late-century youth adventure authors in Britain—Thomas
Mayne Reid, Robert Michael Ballantyne, Robert Louis Stevenson, William Henry Giles
Kingston, George Alfred Henty, and Henry Rider Haggard—whose (colonial) novels reflected a significant shift in generic taste from role-models of Nelsonian moral rectitude toward a more swashbuckling, cavalier kind of adventurer. For the twenty-first century reader, Masterman Ready appears positively boring, especially compared to a genre classic like Stevenson’s Treasure Island. The exact opposite was true in nineteenth- century Germany. Marryat’s reception in Germanophone Europe infused the well-worn,
Rousseauian robinsonade with a shot of excitement and naval empiricism, and took direct aim at the experiential shortcomings of its earlier authors. Two translations of Masterman
Ready appeared within one year of the third volume’s English release, and both editions remained popular through the turn of the twentieth century.
78 “…verbreitesten Robinsonade im deutschsprachigen Raum während des 19. Jh.s und erlebte noch bis in unsere Gegenwart zahlreiche Auflagen” (Pech, “Vom Biedermeier zum Realismus,” 156). 107 The autobiographical nature of Marryat’s work and the unique aura that he
exuded as a children’s book author should not be understated. Unlike the other children’s
book authors of his day, who often fabricated archetypical heroes to suit their
philosophical and pedagogical ends, Marryat’s protagonists emerged from his own
experiences at sea. Adult readers did not always appreciate his candor—in one instance, a
fellow ex-naval officer strongly objected to Marryat’s characterization of a mutual
acquaintance and challenged him to a duel to restore his compatriot’s honor. Though the
stories he told at parties were not always deemed proper for a younger audience, he
excelled at entertaining children with anecdotes from his voyages at sea. Joseph Conrad
called him “the enslaver of youth, not by the false glamour of presentation, but by the
heroic quality of his own unique temperament” (qtd. in Fulford, “Romanticizing the
Empire” 191). The author’s bona fides as a decorated naval officer elevated him to
romantic celebrity and imbued his characterizations of naval life with a strong air of
veracity. Marryat not only wrote adventure, he had lived it.
Well, some of it. Marryat’s first career as a naval officer certainly provided ample
material for his second as an author, but his personal share in the glory is perhaps more
prosaic than his novels might suggest. Though he was a midshipman during the
Napoleonic Wars, he did not share in Nelson’s military success (and near deification) at
Trafalgar.79 His most enduring contribution to the Royal Navy was tactical: in 1819, he
developed an intricate system of maritime flag signaling called Marryat’s Code. This,
79 Marryat did have the opportunity to sketch Napoleon on his deathbed on Elba—his rendition can still be seen at the Royal Museums in Greenwich. 108 along with designs for a new lifeboat, eventually became the basis for his acceptance as a
Fellow of the Royal Society in 1819. While he may not have grasped undying fame for
Nelsonian naval exploits, he was able to fuse decades of practical experience with an
uncannily familiar narrative of middle-class success.
His story began as many sea-tales do—with an act of teenage rebellion. Against
his father’s wishes, Marryat left home to begin his career in the British navy in 1806, as a
midshipman serving on the HMS Imperieuse. He was only fourteen years old. His service
during the War of 1812 broadened his horizons, taking him to coastal France, the
Mediterranean, Bermuda, Nova Scotia, Orléans, and Massachusetts. With few
exceptions, most of his naval stories recall these early, foundational experiences.
Following years of relative peace and quiet advancement, Marryat was called into action
as a captain in the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1824, and returned home in 1826. This
was his last major action as an active officer in the British navy (see Clarkson Stanfield’s
portrait of the author in uniform for The Pirate and the Three Cutters in Fig. 42).
Marryat had difficulty adjusting to the settled life. He was unused to the rhythm
and trappings of home life, and moved multiple times in the first decade following his
retirement. Marryat tried his hand at various styles of veteran life, but struggled to find
the right niche. First, he joined the court of the Duke of Sussex, but became appalled by
the decadence and intrigue of the aristocracy. As a self-made seaman, Marryat had
developed a strong disdain for unmerited privilege. According to biographer Tom
Pocock, Marryat’s disillusion with the court’s self-indulgence reached a peak in 1830, and “left Marryat with the view that English society consisted of ‘froth at the top, dregs at 109 the bottom and in the middle, excellent’” (108). Following this, he relocated to the country to try his hand at being a sort of country gentleman, but made a poor farmer.
It was in London that he found his post-military peers—and his second vocation as a writer. In 1832, he purchased the small Metropolitan Magazine and served as editor until 1835. Shortly thereafter, financial straits impelled him to move to North America
(while his wife and children relocated to the Continent), where he travelled for a time before returning to Paris, agreeing on a practical separation from his wife Catherine
Shairp (with whom he had eleven children), and moving into his mother’s house at
Wimbledon (Pocock 163). At this point, he redirected his energies into releasing serial novels based on his experiences in the navy. To facilitate this—and likely to remind himself of past glories—Marryat surrounded himself with the trappings of faraway lands.
At the Wimbledon House,
he displayed his souvenirs until ‘there was scarcely a room…that was not decorated with some of the spoils which Captain Marryat had collected on his travels… a Burmese shrine with silver idols, rifled from a pagoda; the carved tusks of a sacred elephant; opossum skins from Canada, embroidered with porcupine quills and coloured beads; toys in tortoiseshell and ivory, with precious stones and curious shells, were scattered everywhere, recalling memories of the Rangoon war, America, India, and the celestial Empire.’ (Pocock 163)
Inspired by these exotic objects and his vast trove of personal experiences,
Marryat embarked on a long and lucrative literary career that would, in many respects, eclipse his success at sea. In both literary society and the publishing trade, he had found a happy medium.
110 Early Works and their Reception
Marryat’s early novels were written for adults and present life at sea as a
battleground between good and bad human impulses. As John Peck notes of maritime
fiction, “the physical reality of life at sea is simply incompatible with any pleasant fiction
that might be constructed about the navy” (53). While Marryat grew better at
interweaving the former with the latter, his debut novel was anything but pleasant. The
Naval Officer, or Scenes in the Life and Adventures of Frank Mildmay (1829), is
remarkable for its unvarnished presentation of average seamen as avaricious, cruel, self-
serving cutthroats whose worst impulses are rather tenuously held in check by the
constant threat of corporal punishment. Frank Mildmay hurls the reader headlong into a
brutal male culture of “bullying, cruelty, self-assertion, physical suffering, drink, and
greed” through the eyes of a “psychotic” hero who views the world as endless struggle
(Peck 54). As a result, Marryat’s protagonist Mildmay gains practical experience (and
rank) without personal growth—he merely survives a series of episodes.80 Though
perhaps a feasible deterrent to youthful errantry, Mildmay’s bleakness and brutality were
deemed unsuitable for a child audience—or anyone lacking the necessary constitution.
Frank Mildmay was a financial success, but its strong basis in Marryat’s
experiences in 1821 opened it to criticism and threats from the author’s naval peers.
However, “while admitting that his descriptions of seafaring and fighting were accurate
80 Peck reads Frank Mildmay as a successor to Tobias Smollett’s 1748 novel, Roderick Random, which similarly accentuates the difference between domestic life and the body-at-sea. Though its protagonist lacks the roguish charm of German picaresque predecessors such as Grimmelshausen’s Simplicissimus, there is a similarity in their reluctance or incapacity for personal development. 111 accounts of his own experiences, he denied that Mildmay was a self-portrait, though he admitted in the novel that ‘we had sowed our wild oats; we had paid off those who had ill-treated us’” (Pocock 100). Nonetheless, the novel was published anonymously, in part to shield Marryat’s authorial prospects in the event of a flop, in part to prevent other veterans from identifying themselves in its pages.
Another early source of criticism were the gatekeepers of the British high-literary establishment, some of whom bristled at Marryat’s willingness to sow his literary oats in less-reputable publishing pastures. Marryat often bristled back. In response to criticism from Fraser’s Magazine—a respected literary journal of the time—that Marryat’s serialized work “The Poacher” (1841) is a type of “pitiful peddling” that should be beneath him, the author invokes a familiar dictum: “you will agree with me that the great end of literature is to instruct and amuse—to make mankind wiser and better. If, therefore, an author writes with this end in view and succeeds, you must admit that the greater is his circulation, the more valuable are his labours” (F. Marryat 101, 104). In the same letter, Marryat rails against an exclusive literature for the privileged classes, and defends the social value of writing for a lower-class readership:
…I would rather write for the instruction, or even the amusement, of the poor than for the amusement of the rich; and I had sooner raise a smile or create interest in the honest mechanic or agricultural labourer who requires relaxation, than I would contribute to dispel the ennui of those who loll on their couches and wonder in their idleness what they shall do next. (F. Marryat 105)
112 At this point in his literary career, it seems that Marryat had identified, clarified, and publicly defended a central tenet of his authorial philosophy: the virtue of meritocracy. His stories were far-removed from the aristocratic “Grand Tour” novels, where young men of means use (and abuse) travel as a means to accumulate high-end cultural capital—in Marryat’s works the protagonists have to earn their keep through hard work. However, though critical of the nobility, his novels cannot be deemed proto- working-class literature either. Marryat’s magazine serials would have been affordable for a lower-class readership, but his long-form novels (particularly Longmans’ beautifully illustrated The Pirate and the Three Cutters) would likely have been unaffordable for a lower-income demographic. By the process of elimination, Marryat appears to have pinpointed an ideal readership for his novels: self-respecting, self-made members of the middle class.
In his next major novel, Marryat tried to further reconcile the reality of the naval regime to the domestic world of his bourgeois readership. Mr. Midshipman Easy (1836) took a different tack and sought to reassure—rather than shock—the reader with the alterity of a life at sea. However, this tension remains only superficially balanced:
“Marryat’s language fabricates an upbeat, positive tale” and the hero embodies a clear- cut sense of right and wrong, but the background is pervaded by a “constant and awkward emphasis on the body, violence, cruelty, and random death” (Peck 64). In this case, identifiable and often youthful and inexperienced bourgeois protagonists exist in an unclear relationship to an alien, often violent world. It seems that, in order to reach the middle-class reader that he seemed to admire, Marryat needed to find a happy medium 113 between truth and fiction. In other words, he needed to bend his narrative style and content toward a more conventional model—one that could positively influence the next generation of middle-class youngsters. The Swiss Family Robinson was to be that model.
Masterman Ready; or the Wreck of the Pacific
In the preface to volume one of Masterman Ready (1841), Marryat explicitly identifies Wyß’s work as the motivation for his own novel. Following his children’s request that he write a sequel to the popular Swiss Family Robinson, Marryat reads the novel and finds it so wanting in substance that he decides that it would be easier to “write another in the same style” instead (v). Most of the “insurmountable difficulties” that
Marryat identifies in the former work concern its accuracy:
I have said that it is very amusing; but the fault which I find in it is, that it does not adhere to the probable, or even the possible, which should ever be the case in a book, even if fictitious, when written for children. I pass over the seamanship, or rather the want of it…as that is not a matter of any consequence…but what compelled me to abandon the task was, that much ignorance, or carelessness, had been displayed in describing the vegetable and animal productions of the island on which the family had been wrecked. The island is supposed to be far to the southward, near to Van Diemen’s Land; yet, in these temperate latitudes, we have not only plants, but animals, introduced which could only be found in the interior of Africa or the torrid zone, mixed up with those really indigenous to the climate (vi-vii).
The significance of inconsistencies that “may appear to be trifles” is that they nonetheless make strong impressions on the “juvenile mind” (vii). Here, Marryat details
114 his general view on children’s books, one which resonates strongly with the prevailing
sentiments of the day: even if not based on real-life occurences, “fiction, when written for
young people, should, at all events, be based upon truth” (vii).
In this vein, the most prominent difference between Masterman Ready and other
robinsonades is Marryat’s attention to the details and experience of navigation. Other
stories mention specific destinations or routes as framing context at the beginning of the
novel, but abandon them once the protagonist has reached the island. By contrast,
Marryat’s novel frequently returns to these themes in dialogues between William, his
father, and Ready. Seafaring protocols and expectations—especially for marooned sailors—are presented factually and soberly, the importance of particular winds and navigating routes recurs at appropriate moments, and various animals and natural phenomena—particularly regarding storms and winds—are explained in detail. Such discursive moments add experiential weight to the story’s straightforward descriptions and heighten the impression that they are, or have been, embodied.
Despite Marryat’s factual improvements, the structure of the tale remains largely the same. As a critical reworking of Wyß’s work, Masterman Ready mirrors not only its formal structure, but also much of its content. Much like The Swiss Family Robinson, the narrative opens with the Seagrave family—Mr. and Mrs. Seagrave, their African servant
Juno, and their four children, William, Tommy, Caroline, and Albert—already en route from London to Australia to manage the “several thousand acres of land” that Mr.
Seagrave had purchased several years before (11). While Captain Osborn helms their ship, the Pacific, it is the veteran Masterman Ready, a mid-ranking officer, who forms an 115 early bond with their oldest son William during the voyage. Several minor adventures on their journey around the Cape of Good Hope establish the main characters’ defining traits: Ready is reliable and experienced, Mr. Seagrave upright and respectable, Mrs.
Seagrave amiable but sickly, William a “clever steady boy” who is also “full of mirth and humour,” and six-year-old Tommy a “very thoughtless but good-tempered boy, full of mischief” (11). Following a storm at sea, the ship suffers irreparable damage and Captain
Osborn is incapacitated. Under the leadership of the first mate Mackintosh, the crew uses the limited supply of lifeboats to save themselves, leaving the fatefully named Seagrave family to certain death. Ready decides to stay with them, and together, they manage to steer the doomed hulk through the storm and transfer most of the supplies onto an island—located somewhere near Van Diemen’s Land, or Tasmania—before it sinks. The bulk of the story follows the family’s gradual domestication of the island space. Under
Ready’s guidance, they locate and tap fresh water, establish a first, then a second permanent dwelling (see, for example, Fig. 43), secure renewable sources of food through fish and turtle ponds, and make all other practical arrangements to ensure their survival until they can be rescued. With the exception of Tommy’s minor misadventures and
Juno’s startling head injury during a storm, nothing seriously threatens their serene island home during the first few months.
As the daily labors of their domestic project become routine, so too does the familiar tradition of evening storytelling. Each night, Ready shares a series of cautionary tales from his life of youthful misadventure, and highlights the many regrets he has carried with him since squandering his respectable, middle-class prospects. When Ready 116 and William set out to explore the extent of the island, they discover that it is part of a larger chain, one likely populated by natives. Ready fears that—having discovered the stranded Europeans and their valuables—these natives might kill them to take possession of their metal goods. His fears are vindicated. After recovering their strength, two natives whom Ready had previously rescued from drowning flee in the middle of the night with some of the Seagrave’s silverware. Ready and the family fortify their encampment, and prepare for a siege. A few weeks later, the natives land in force, and attempt to storm the palisade. Their attacks fail both times, but Ready is fatally wounded in the second assault.
Just as the natives prepare to fire the wooden defenses and seal the Seagrave family’s fate, a recuperated Captain Osborn sails back into the narrative to drive off the attackers.
Following a touching farewell scene, the family buries Ready on the island and honors his many sacrifices, without which they would have certainly died.
Affective Archetypes
Many of the “classic” narrative components of the robinsonade are easy to identify in Masterman Ready: shipwreck and natural catastrophe, survival through hard work and rational ingenuity, successful fortification and defense of the colony with the help of reclaimed European technology, and eventual rescue and return to European civilization. Despite these structural similarities, Marryat’s novel diverges from Defoe by eliding or completely jettisoning spiritual and psychological interiority. Defoe’s narrator delves into the eponymous hero’s internal struggles with material want, fate, and the
117 bleakness of his isolation in Robinson Crusoe; in Masterman Ready, the plight and survival of the Seagrave family occur entirely at the surface level of action and work.
The most pressing existential concerns are dispelled or displaced through a combination of blood, sweat, and stories. Following Campe and Wyß’s example,
Masterman Ready unties Defoe’s complex thematic interweavings, resulting in two distinct narrative spools: a third-person account of the family’s journey and insular experience, periodically interrupted by Ready’s first-person “history.” The former perspective sets the tone: an omniscient, third-person narrator (whose connection to the protagonists is never, as is the case in some other robinsonades, explicitly grounded or explained in the text) soberly and succinctly describes the events as they unfold. The implication is clear: this is a space and narrative defined by activity.
By contrast, Ready presents his personal history as a spiritual autobiography where his deep, personal regret over every misdeed frames each episode and is transformed into a cautionary moral in the concluding “discussion” at the end of each night’s telling. In Campe’s Robinson, the father-narrator occupied this role of framing the titular character’s growth through strife; in Masterman Ready, the titular character speaks for himself. As the narrative progresses, and particularly following the completion of his
“history,” it becomes clear that the story is much more about Ready’s arc of redemption than the Seagrave family’s fortunes. Though it is too late for him to recover the lost decades and wasted opportunities of his own bourgeois “good life,” Ready hopes to succeed vicariously through the fortunes of the Seagrave family. For him, the island is a
118 purgatorial space, and the salvation of the Seagrave family through hard work, self-
sacrifice, and mentorship becomes his personal path to redemption.81
The Seagrave family functions almost exclusively as a foil for this project. Most of them are adequately described with the two or three archetypal traits mentioned above—while they each gain practical experience from the island episode, none of them is significantly altered by this experience. This creates a different dynamic from Campe’s
Robinson der Jüngere, where the children’s interaction with the father-narrator and one another illustrates how they have internalized the moral lessons from the Robinson story.
In Masterman Ready, all of the children confirm who they already are at every stage of the novel: William is indeed clever and steady, Tommy an impish troublemaker, and
Caroline quiet and obedient.
Such an ideal family, the novel argues, should be preserved and protected, not punished. As in The Swiss Family Robinson, the members of the Seagrave family are not stranded on some island purgatory in order to purify them of their evil ways. They are an archetypal bourgeois family who simply want to survive and hope to be rescued so that they can continue their voyage toward a prosperous, middle-class existence. They will, of course, be saved through the judicious application of the standard catalogue of bourgeois virtues—religious conviction, respect for one’s superiors, a strong work ethic, and love for one’s family—traits that William and Ready already possess in spades. Though they prove themselves in a variety of contexts, the two protagonists do not undergo any
81 This redemptive aspiration may have resonated particularly strongly with non-aristocratic, middle-class veterans who returned from years of military service to an unclear place and purpose in society. 119 dramatic transformations—both simply confirm that they are indeed what everyone already expects them to be: good eggs.
While this strategy obliterates all ambiguity as to the reader’s ideal rooting interests, contemporary sensibilities often deem Marryat’s reliance on moral heavy- handedness to achieve it both ineffective and intolerably dull. Anita Moss perhaps best captures this perspective in the following assessment: “the accuracy of nautical and geographical details can hardly make up for the dreariness of the work” (13). Moss finds the characters equally intolerable: William Seagrave is “loathsomely good, pious, and self-sacrificing,” while Tommy is “totally depraved” (13). In a similar vein, Susan Maher wryly notes that
The castaways, Tommy excepted, act out all the graven images of Victorian iconography: they labor hard and thus prosper readily; they worship and thus behave nobly; they maintain the sanctity of family and thus survive peaceably; they accept their place and duty and thus exist happily. No cannibal invasion could ever defeat such a fortified group. (171)
Such moral fortitude may be difficult for twenty-first century readers to stomach, but it fit neatly into the Victorian path to the middle-class good life. Some of the most popular late-eighteenth century children’s books were “… non-fiction works of information or secular improvement for middle-class readers,” intended to “help readers acquire the gentility that was an asset in a society whose robust commercial economy brought the middle and upper classes into more frequent contact, offering increased prospects for social advancement” (Immel 739). The publisher also categorized 120 Masterman Ready as such—in the Longman, Brown & Co. catalogue from April 1842;
Marryat’s novel appears alongside The Boy’s Own Book (an encyclopedia of the diversions—athletic, scientific, and recreative—of boyhood and youth) and The Young
Ladies’ Book (a manual of elegant recreations, exercises, and pursuits for girls) in the
“Juvenile Works” section. The exaggerated figures that William and Tommy cut are more comprehensible when viewed against this practical-pedagogical backdrop as unambiguous role models for acceptable, affective imitation instead of our literary- aesthetic preferences for character depth and interiority.
Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere offers a variety of child characters for readers to identify with, even if they are ultimately all guided by the same leading figure. A similar strategy of affective identification is at work in Masterman Ready and is entirely focused on William. William is constantly praised for his courage, industry, and ability—and the narrative gives him ample opportunity to prove himself equal to every challenge. Given his consistent portrayal as an exceptional young man, it comes as no surprise that he pulls the trigger to save Ready from the killing blow during the natives’ final assault on the palisade.
The effect of this strategy is amplified through the use of negative examples. If child readers are intended to identify with William they are also expected to join in the collective sighs at Tommy’s latest misdeed. In almost every instance, the immature
Tommy acts as the foil to his ideal older brother. Whereas the latter can do no wrong and is constantly praised for his selflessness and ability by both his father Mr. Seagrave and his mentor Ready, Tommy constantly creates havoc by acting selfishly and impetuously. 121 Most of his misdeeds are framed as minor indiscretions that serve to lighten the mood of the story (see, for example, the chapter four title vignette in Fig. 44). The most prominent examples include: eating so many wild berries that he gets sick, playing with a lobster until it pinches him and won’t let go, trying to paddle the canoe out to sea, only to get stuck in the shoals and threatened by a shark, and stealing eggs from the henhouse. None of these actions is inherently malicious. However, his final prank has fatal consequences.
When the water store runs out inside the palisade because Tommy has misused it for the laundry the day before, Ready must risk leaving the fort to resupply it, and is mortally wounded as a result.
These “Spitzbuben” episodes presage the impish chaos wrought in German works like Wilhelm Busch’s Max & Moritz (1865), and evoke other cautionary child figures found in contemporary etiquette books (many of whom would be later satirized by
Heinrich Hoffmann in Der Struwwelpeter). Even if child readers are closer to Tommy in age than William, their aspirational figures—and the consequences of straying from them—are clearly marked by the author. Tommy is often implicitly linked to the unruly, younger Ready who appears in the sailor’s regretful tales of his earlier years of adventure. The cautionary tale is, just like in Campe’s Robinson, explicitly tied to certain childhood attitudes and behaviors that Tommy frequently exhibits. This is most readily apparent in the emotional scene at Ready’s deathbed. While the dying hero requests that the family withhold judgment from Tommy for his fatal mishap so as not to overburden the young boy with a sense of irredeemable guilt, Tommy’s last mistake is a warning to readers of the consequences of a life bereft of compassion and personal growth. 122 Bourgeois Horizons
If Marryat’s combination of familiar narrative structures and unambiguous characters charts a clear course toward virtue, then simplicity and predictability are undoubtedly its most important waypoints. The author’s stylistic credo reflects his long career as a man of action. In the first chapter of his novel The King’s Own, Marryat describes his writing philosophy in appropriately succinct terms:
The general object looked for in this world is to obtain the greatest possible effect with the smallest power; if so, the more simple the language, the more matter is condensed, the nearer we approach perfection. Flourishes and flowers of rhetoric may be compared to extra wheels applied to a carriage, increasing the rattling and complexity of the machine, without adding to either the strength of its fabric or the rapidity of its course. (8)
Marryat adheres to this philosophy with a remarkable degree of consistency. The overall effect keeps the island narrative moving at a good clip, and even the didactic commentary after Ready’s stories is kept short in the interest of maintaining forward momentum. The emphasis on action tends to flatten some of the pivotal scenes—for example, one sentence encapsulates the Seagrave family’s distress at being abandoned by
Mackintosh and the crew—but it establishes an easily readable narrative rhythm.
Extensive foreshadowing further regulates this rhythm. Simple, descriptive language and straightforward dialogue define the daily island routine, while morning and evening are occasions for anticipation and reflection. Ready’s reconnaissance prepares both the reader and the Seagrave family for short-term and long-term eventualities.
123 Marryat sequences his observations for narrative purposes, which begin to shift with each volume. Ready’s wealth of practical expertise is on full display in Volumes I–II as he directs the concrete, daily tasks that slowly build up a sustainable island life for the
Seagrave family. Each chapter is a day that begins with some version of the question,
“What are we to do today, Ready?,” and concludes once that task has been completed.
This daily rhythm continues through Volume II but is complemented by both private and familial musings: every morning Ready walks alone to the beach and looks to the horizon to see what new test awaits them; every evening he shares an anecdote with the family that illustrates his lack of foresight as a youth. Ready’s morning routine identifies mid-to- long-term concerns within the timeframe of the novel, only some of which he decides to share with his charges. For example, Ready warns the Seagraves of impending storms, predicts that the natives will attack, and tells them precisely why they need to build a turtle pond, but decides not to tell them about a European ship he has sighted, so that they do not embrace the false hope of a speedy rescue.
By doing this, Ready regulates the Seagrave family’s island experience by filtering out any information likely to cause them harm. Lacking the experience to properly interpret their horizons, the newly marooned Seagraves—like his child readers—cannot be trusted to form reasonable expectations for their future. The
Seagraves are, in effect, treated as children and “sheltered” by Ready’s selective sharing up to the point when their physical shelter (maturity) is secured. Near the beginning of
Volume II, Ready begins to slowly broaden his wards’ horizons by sharing from his own past experiences. These cautionary tales introduce social themes into the narrative and 124 point to the world beyond the limiting horizons of the island. Ready’s negative admonitions—always, in essence, a form of: “don’t make the same mistakes as I did”— give Mr. Seagrave opportunity to assert his own paternal voice as a positive role model.
The William/Tommy, good boy/bad boy binary thus gains a corollary in the bifurcated father figure of Ready/Mr. Seagrave. Though they have clearly-demarcated areas of expertise—Ready handles all practical concerns for their physical survival, while Mr.
Seagrave has the intellectual background to answer William’s professional, scientific, and spiritual questions—they both aim to secure the future wellbeing of the Seagrave boys.
Ready functions as a negative example, Mr. Seagrave as a positive one, but the common goal of their information regulation regime is a familiar one: to present, discuss, and discard reckless adventure in order to sharpen the reader’s focus on the proper bourgeois horizon. The “broadening” of one’s horizons has no a priori value here—its worth only comes from the successful integration of each experience into the developmental trajectory of the bourgeois young man. William Seagrave’s experiences of shipwreck, sickness, hunting, exploring, and fighting are all carefully curated into a sort of portfolio of deeds, each of which bears witness to his many admirable qualities. In
Masterman Ready, affective, structural, and narrative strategies manipulate and delimit
William’s (and by extension the reader’s) horizon of expectations in order to keep him on the right path, and he is inerrant in following it. His perspective is broadened, but he remains fundamentally unchanged by the experience. In sum, William’s island trial is a physical analogue to a religious confirmation. He was raised as part of a loving bourgeois
125 family, but only his own actions as a (young) man affirm that he has embraced this identity—and its aspirations—for himself.
Xylographic Lenses
One more component complements the textual components discussed above—
Marryat’s illustrations. Unlike Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere or Wyß’s The Swiss
Family Robinson, which were initially released with minimal ornamentation, 93 wood engravings were seamlessly integrated into the three volumes of Masterman Ready for its initial release in 1841–42. The illustrations appear primarily as chapter vignettes, and further accentuate a sense of rhythm, order, and control within the narrative. The following will provide an overview of the illustrations’ aesthetic tendencies, explore how
Marryat implicates them in his overarching strategy, and assess how entertaining or edifying their ultimate effects (affects) appear to be.
Consistently workmanlike—that is perhaps the most generous description that can be applied to the illustrations in Masterman Ready. Marryat’s early successes had been released by the venerable and highly respected London publisher Longman, Orme,
Brown, Green, and Longmans and had found stylistic peers with many of the publisher’s other “high-brow” bourgeois novels. For example, Longman et al.’s luxury edition of The
Pirate, or The Three Cutters (1836) featured an exquisite set of steel engravings designed by the marine painter Clarkson Stanfield, and Marryat himself is featured prominently as the frontispiece (see Fig 42). In the case of Masterman Ready, however, Marryat is no 126 longer model but maker. The illustrations are unattributed, but he appears to be the designer. In a letter addressed to a certain Mrs. S., dated Feb. 13, 1841, Marryat hints at his role in a passing comment about his progress on Masterman Ready: “I have been amusing myself with drawing all the illustrations myself and they will do very well, independent of saving me a great deal of money” (F. Marryat 113). Unlike Campe, who hand selected Chodowiecki for his stylistic reputation, Marryat’s concern for cost appears to be the primary motive here. A lifelong struggle with personal finances made hiring
Stanfield or enlisting the services of celebrity Victorian illustrators like Hablot Knight
Browne (“Phiz”) or George Cruikshank impossible and—given Marryat’s experience drawing in the navy and his newfound acclaim as an author—unnecessarily frivolous in his mind.
Marryat makes ample use of the relief medium to bring his readers even closer to the text. A total of 93 illustrations span 781 pages of text across three volumes—on average, the reader encounters a new vignette every 8.4 pages. With very few exceptions, each chapter begins with a title vignette that focuses the reader’s attention on a particular aspect or scene to come. Ready’s stories and the dramatic final battle aside, the majority of the chapters are limited to one scene or event. In nearly all cases, the illustration neatly reproduces this primary occurrence (see, for example, Fig. 45 of the “Landing”). Due to the brevity and succinctness of most chapters, the scenes and figures selected are not particularly significant—as most chapters contain only 2–4 pages of text, Marryat’s verbal narrative effectively predetermines his visual one. Marryat consistently remains very close to his narrative and renders each section’s most salient occurrence. Like the 127 text itself, the illustrations do not attempt to extend beyond the surface level of action—
these are simplistic and unambiguous depictions that visually reproduce the narrative.
It is the author/illustrator’s choice of perspective, which mimics his own mixed
narrative voice, that is much more consequential. A third-person narrator constrained to
the focal perspectives of Ready and the Seagrave family (we do not, for example, find out
what has happened to Mackintosh or Captain Osborne until the latter arrives to save them
in the final chapter) establishes a steady, predictable rhythm as he steers the narrative
toward its destination, pausing only briefly to explore more poignant events and dialogue
in detail. Marryat’s wood engravings mirror this tendency visually: 82% (76/93) of the
vignettes use a disembodied, third-person point-of-view—with a preference for middle or
foreground protagonists (65% or 60/93 vignettes). This preference in turn foregrounds
each narrative episode: 88% (46/52) of the chapters are introduced from this perspective.
With few exceptions, the reader predominately “sees” the story unfold entirely through
the narrator’s disembodied, “neutral” external focalization.
This perspectival consistency is matched by consistency of content. Marryat’s
visual focus is overwhelmingly on the routine tasks that Ready and the Seagraves engage
in to cultivate and civilize the island space—nearly 89% (83/93) of the images are set on this level of the narrative. This emphasis on productive action has major consequences on the manner in which objects, people, and spaces appear in the story. Not surprisingly, the
primary protagonists feature prominently as the laborers in these scenes—Ready appears
in 51% of all images, William in 38%, Mr. Seagrave 23%, Juno 15%, and Tommy 14%.
Although the overwhelming majority of the story takes place on the island, sailors (12%) 128 and ships (13%) are also featured heavily. Other familiar objects greet the viewer on the
island space—domesticated animals (dogs, chickens, pigs, fish, turtles, etc.) and
buildings can be seen in 30% and 22% of the illustrations respectively. By contrast,
exotic animals appear relatively rarely (7% and 5% respectively). In sum, most of
Marryat’s illustrations offer omniscient glimpses of daily labor on the island and, like the
Creator in Genesis, encourage the reader to see that “it was good” at the end of each day.
Who is good is also made abundantly clear through the visual narrative.
Masterman Ready not only appears in the title, but is also the first figure the reader
“sees”—both in the frontispiece (see Fig. 46), but also in the text. Given his importance, it is not surprising that he is featured so prominently throughout the novel (48/93 images). In fact, he and Tommy—the acme and nadir of virtue respectively—are the only characters to be displayed prominently without accompaniment (other characters appear in the foreground but are not alone). Ready appears primarily in one of two settings: in wide-angle, mentoring scenes with William or in close-ups featuring his particular (e.g., not easily teachable) expertise. In the former instance, Ready and William are almost always portrayed mid-ground in a more “descriptive” perspective: we see their entire bodies, often centered, from the profile with a good amount of surrounding detail. They neither dominate nor are dominated by the rest of the image—they are central, but their activity is the focus (see, for example, Fig. 47). When he appears alone, the perspective zooms in and Ready’s attributes—level-headedness, bravery, industry, and kindness— become the primary focus (see, for example, Fig. 48). Moments like these visually reproduce and accentuate Ready’s textual qualities and present them for the reader in a 129 theatrical fashion. The reader/viewer is clearly a passive witness to Ready’s expertise— they are not expected to emulate this feat, but are certainly expected to appreciate it.
Marryat’s disembodied, disaffected visual and narrative norm keeps emotion at arm’s length throughout the book, and the focus on Ready centers reader identification on his exemplary industry and moral experience. It is perhaps surprising that William, the clearest proxy for the aspirational child reader, is not featured even more prominently in the chapter illustrations. While William does appear in 38% of the overall images
(36/93), his visualization is much less prominent than his textual presence. However, the monotony of the work perspective is interrupted at key moments and the reader-viewer is allowed into the story. In nineteen instances, the reader is invited to see the narrative events unfold from William’s point-of-view. The majority of these moments focus the reader’s attention on abnormal occurrences—from exotic animal sightings to childish pranks gone awry. The relief medium allows for very clean, very direct insertions into the textual narrative. For example, during William and Ready’s opening conversation on the deck of the Pacific, William spots some unfamiliar birds off the bowsprit and asks Ready what they are. Fig. 49 shows the exact layout of page five, where Ready’s response is directly followed by an image of the stormy petrels as seen from William’s perspective.
By allowing the reader more direct access to moments of curiosity, wonder, and comedy,
Marryat adds authenticity and flavor to the (familiar) routinized world of work.
It should be noted that—with the exception of the shark eating a pig—none of the
“first person vignettes” mentioned above features acts of violence. The violent episodes in Ready’s tale and the natives’ assaults on the Seagrave’s stockade are all rendered from 130 the omniscient narrator’s more “neutral” perspective (see, for example, Figs. 50 and 51).
This is not to say that they are any less moving or immediate—for example, Fig. 51 identifies the protagonists using well-worn class identifiers and ethnic stereotypes, establishes the immediate stakes, and dynamically captures the proving moment of the climactic final battle. It does not, however, involve the reader directly in the experience of impending death; the savage native lunges at Ready, not the reader.82 The reader, in turn, does not take aim with William at Ready’s assailant. The image, like the narrative, is passive in this moment: Marryat does not condone direct violence by letting us kill the native with William, but violence in defense of the island is acceptable.
Along with the illustrations, one further component holds the reader at the appropriate distance from the story and further enhances the congruency between text and image. Descriptive captions appear as headers on every page—and some even continue across pages.83 This gives Marryat many more occasions to build thematic associations and meta-commentary on what—in his mind—the text is driving at. It also allows for some subtle, understated British wit to shine through. For example, in a scene following an early storm in Vol. I, William spies a drowned sailor floating upwards in the water.
This image—one of the few not reproduced in most German editions—is introduced with
82 This sensationalist strategy becomes much more commonplace in late nineteenth-century adventure illustrations, many of which feature violent (and violently colored) native warriors (most frequently tomahawk-wielding Native Americans in feathered war-bonnets) launching themselves directly at the reader. Many of the archival volumes consulted for the current chapter—and in particular, for the Cooper chapter—feature anachronistic (e.g., added for collectors) covers with this sort of aggressive advertising strategy. 83 This is the same, highly descriptive titling, that would appear in an older book, such as Robinson Crusoe, either at the beginning of the chapter or the table of contents – e.g., Chapter I. In which Robinson does a and b, then discovers c. 131 the laconic supertitle, “Uncertainty of Life.” Marryat’s commentary on another scene, the one in which William watches a shark swallow one of the ship’s pigs whole, refers to the decision to sacrifice the pig (in order for the Seagraves to land safely) in a similarly dry manner: “Wise Precaution.”
In sum, Marryat’s visual emphasis on work accentuates and amplifies his overarching storytelling foci. The chapter vignettes primarily act as xylographic (wood- engraved) lenses that sharpen the narrative focus on the routine work of survival and exclude self-indulgent or sensational moments. The majority of the story is told, both textually and visually, through external focalizations that present the protagonists in a state of productive activity. A smaller number of individual visualizations (CFs) allow the story to breathe and let the reader experience moments of wonder and levity through the eyes of William, most frequently as he admires Ready (the object of focalization).
Although they do not add significant descriptive content (e.g., by filling narrative gaps or creatively interpreting particular scenes), the illustrations are important to establishing
Marryat’s storytelling rhythm and its regulatory functions. Exactly how integral will be explored in the following sections as we follow Masterman Ready across the Channel to
Germany.
HEINRICH LAUBE’S SIGISMUND RÜSTIG, DER BREMER STEUERMANN (1843)
Heinrich Laube’s Sigismund Rüstig, the Helmsman from Bremen (Sigismund
Rüstig, der Bremer Steuermann) was the best-selling German adaptation of Marryat’s
132 acclaimed novel in its time, and is counted among the classics of the German adventure genre. Published only a year after Vol. III of Masterman Ready, Laube’s adaptation enjoyed much longer success than its literary predecessor with as many as 19 editions between 1843 and 1887 alone. B. G. Teubner, Laube’s publisher in Leipzig, did an exceptional job in tailoring the work for a German child readership. The full title,
Sigismund Rüstig, the Helmsman from Bremen. A New Robinson, Adapted from Captain
Marryat’s [Original] for Young German Readers (Sigismund Rüstig, der Bremer
Steuermann. Ein neuer Robinson, nach Kapitän Marryat frei für die deutsche Jugend bearbeitet), leverages Marryat’s reputation and the Robinson label to position itself as an authenticated addition to an acceptable children’s literary genre. Laube specifically points to Marryat’s experience as a reason for his stellar reputation in Germany: “The English
Captain Marryat is known in Germany as a man who has seen and experienced much, and who is an exceptional storyteller. Specifically, he has gone on great sea voyages and knows naval life and far-away lands very well” (vii).84 In a fledgling market demographic flooded with cynical cash-grabs and cheap knock-offs, eyewitness accuracy was a major selling point for publishers, pedagogues, and parents alike. For children (and perhaps for adults as well), the promise of ninety-four images in one volume (“94 Abbildungen in einem Bande”)—one more than Masterman Ready—was perhaps even more alluring.
These contextual factors, along with Heinrich Laube’s stellar literary reputation, help to
84 “Der englische Kapitän Marryat ist in Deutschland bekannt als ein Mann, der viel gesehen und erlebt hat, und der vortrefflich zu erzählen versteht. Besonders hat er große Seereisen gemacht und kennt das Seeleben sowie ferne Weltteile genau” (Laube vii). 133 explain how Sigismund Rüstig entered into the early canon of German children’s
literature.
What distinguished this particular edition from its peers? Given the looseness and
license of many English-to-German adaptations at this time (discussed at length in the
next chapter on James Fenimore Cooper), what is most remarkable about Sigismund
Rüstig is how closely it cleaves to the original in nearly every respect. Narrative structure,
plot, tone, and even the finer points of several Socratic dialogues between William and
his paternal figures—the form and content of the text is carefully preserved in the
translation. All of Marryat’s wood-engraved vignettes are reproduced exactly as in the original. Whether Marryat or Longmans et al. loaned or electrotyped the blocks for
Teubner is unclear, but that they are exact replicas is beyond question. The only difference is in their precise placement and subtitling (for a particularly telling example, compare Fig. 46 to the frontispiece in Fig. 52).85 In sum, this may well be one of the most
faithful translations within the transnational robinsonade genre.
The format and content of the book attest to its transnational origins, but the
author pays lip service to its national distinction. In his preface, Laube alludes to
sweeping changes he has made to reposition the English original for a German audience:
“Of course we had to completely revise it, because German children are certainly raised
85 Both books were released in with the same (octavo) page size, but some of these changes can be accounted for by the practical difference in spacing between Latin and Fraktur scripts. Masterman Ready reads 21 lines per page with generous line spacing, while Sigismund Rüstig’s more compact formatting fits 32 lines per page. 134 differently than English children” (viii).86 Following such a claim, one might expect a return to Rousseau’s deism (and a rejection of Marryat’s embrace of institutional
Christian identity), or perhaps a more critical position on the shortcomings of British colonialism. With a titular character like Sigismund Rüstig, the naïve reader might also expect to be inundated with Teutonic national character at every turn. Upon closer inspection, however, Laube’s “complete revision” of the text is really limited to a few, cosmetic changes to the protagonists’ names and national origin.87 With the exception of
the Scotsman Mackintosh, all of the character names are heavy-handedly eingedeutscht:
William Seagrave becomes Wilhelm Walter, Tommy changes to Thomi, and Captain
Osborn from London turns into Kapitän Braun from Bremerhaven. The impetus for the
voyage remains unaltered: Herr Walter is relocating his family from Bremen to New
South Wales to assume command of his expansive ranchland near Sydney. Like other
questions surrounding the story’s colonial British frame, exactly how or why a German
came to own an interest in Australia is never explored. The same treatment is given to
Masterman Ready’s backstory. As a youngster, “Sigismund Rüstig” rescues and then
rejects the help of a certain Herr Mastermann before embarking on the familiar series of
misadventures with the British navy. The complexities of this relationship are likewise
never explored and, aside from a one-sentence addition that brings them home to Bremen
86 “Wir haben ihn freilich ganz umarbeiten müssen, weil deutsche Kinder doch anders erzogen sind als englische” (Laube, viii). 87 As D. L. Ashliman notes, one of the most common ways of “Germanizing” a text was to replace the leading white characters with German men (140).
135 instead of London, Rüstig and his German friends Jakob Römer (from Jack Romer) and
Wilhelm Hastig (Will Hastings) appear to be German in name only.
In Sigismund Rüstig, German national identity appears as an impotent signifier.
The characters are all nominally German, but their national origin has no meaningful
impact on how they are treated by European (British, French, Dutch) or aboriginal groups
(Caroos, Maori). Rüstig only mentions homesickness at the end of his narrative, and
Laube rather clumsily uses the occasion to comment on national pride and unity:
one always longs for one’s fellow countrymen, regardless of the distance between them, just as a child longs to be close to his family. After so much association, I really should have become an Englishman, but I wasn’t, and my greatest desire was then and continues to be: that Germany would become a naval power once again, as it was during the time of the Hanseatic League (214).88
The disparity between aspirational national pride and actual naval impotence is perhaps best symbolized when Rüstig and the Walter family raise the ship’s flag to signal potential rescuers. Like Rüstig’s return trip, this is one of the few scenes where Laube is forced to alter the text to account for the protagonists’ Germanness. However, unlike the quick fix applied to that example, the author must contrive a more elaborate explanation in this instance because the accompanying vignette prominently features the flag with the ship’s English name, the “Pacific” (see Fig. 53 for the original). Rather than removing the image, Laube hits on a pragmatic, narrative solution: the ship’s flag, Rüstig explains, was
88 “man sehnt sich immer wieder nach seinen Landsleuten, wie lange man auch von ihnen entfert sei, gerade so, wie sich ein Kind nach seiner Familie sehnt. Ich hätte eigentlich durch so langen Umgang ein ganzer Engländer sein müssen, war es aber nicht, und mein höchster Wunsch war damals und ist heute noch: Deutschland möge wieder eine Seemacht werden, wie es eine gewesen ist zur Zeit des Hansebundes (Laube 214). 136 originally in German but, “as it was more probable, that an English ship would pass
nearby,” he had also translated it into English and attached “Pacific” to the other side of
the flag (238).89 Laube’s tactic allows him to proudly affirm the national identity of his heroes—this was a German ship—while simultaneously acknowledging the quantitative insignificance and literal incomprehensibility of that identity to European peer nations.
Like this flag, Sigismund Rüstig makes a timid gesture toward national specificity, but cannot deny its borrowed, transnational character.
Superficial national inflections only serve to misdirect attention from what is, effectively, a German-language version of a British colonial narrative. The publishing context is certainly different, but, excepting the language component, the work is transferred almost one-for-one from one linguistic context to another. The history of transnational borrowing within the genre—with a clear lineage from Defoe to Campe
(Rousseau), Wyß, and then Marryat—appears to have made the Robinsonade much more portable. To go even further, Rousseau’s validation of Defoe as the text for a natural education in Émile had, to borrow a term from Marcel Duchamp, made the Robinsonade a sort of readymade story, a generic narrative that could simply be plucked from its original context and redeployed as a staple of German children’s literature. In this particular example, Masterman Ready’s visual and verbal components are packaged, translated, and reproduced as a unified whole.
Like the latter’s overhyped national character, the paratextual differences between
Masterman Ready and Sigismund Rüstig are subtle. Several images are touched up or
89 “da es warscheinlicher war, es werde ein englisches Schiff in die Nähe kommen” (Laube 238). 137 slightly modified, but none are omitted outright. One image is added—an advertisement
on the title page. While the exact placement of each vignette is changed, the overall usage
and formatting tendencies are not significantly altered. Small changes to the captions—
both in chapter titles, supertitles, and individual image descriptions—give the overall
narrative a slightly different flavor, but also leave it largely unchanged (see Fig. 54).
Finally, without redacting the narrative content, the denser line spacing in the Teubner
edition produces a higher image to text ratio. Chapter brevity leads to higher image
frequency on a page-by-page basis, but otherwise, the song remains the same. With a few
minor exceptions, Sigismund Rüstig faithfully renders Masterman Ready’s textual and
visual narratives—and their pedagogically motivated, intermedial dynamics—for a
German readership.
FRANZ HOFFMANN’S DER NEUE ROBINSON (1843) AND LATER MARRYAT ADAPTATIONS
Heinrich Laube’s Sigismund Rüstig was the most enduring German adaptation of
Masterman Ready, but it was neither the first nor the only successful edition of Marryat’s work. Stuttgart publisher Schmidt & Spring also released an adaptation of the novel in
1843, and further editions appeared until the late nineteenth century from major publishers in Leipzig (Abel & Müller, Gebhardt), Berlin (Weichert), and Stuttgart (K.
Thienemann’s). Many of these replicated and extended Captain Marryat’s appeal for subsequent generations of German readers. Alongside the reception of Masterman Ready,
138 established children’s book publishers like Schmidt & Spring or Campe’s
Schulbuchhandlung (later Vieweg) released adaptations of Marryat’s other works. With
time, Sigismund Rüstig proved pivotal to the development of the adventure genre, but it
was only one part of Marryat’s reception in nineteenth-century Germany.
Der Neue Robinson, oder Schiffbruch des Pacific (1843)
Schmidt & Spring released its adaptation of Masterman Ready. The New
Robinson, or Shipwreck of the Pacific. A Narrative for Young People (Masterman
Ready—Der neue Robinson, oder Schiffbruch des Pacific. Eine Erzählung für die
Jugend) was published in 1843, just before the Teubner edition in Leipzig.90 Franz
Hoffmann’s reworking of the Marryat novel lacks the acclaim of Laube’s version, but is
equally consistent—if somewhat less polished—in its reproduction of the narrative. One
of the major differences between the two lay in the reputations of their respective
translators. Teubner leveraged Heinrich Laube’s acclaim as a poet and figure in “adult”
literary circles to promote Sigismund Rüstig, while Schmidt & Spring relied on the
consistency and familiarity of their in-house children’s author, Franz Hoffmann, to sell
the novel in Swabia.
Franz Hoffmann may not be the most important figure in the reception history of
Marryat’s Masterman Ready, but—for better or worse—his influence on the development
90 It is unlikely that the two editions would have competed with one another directly for readers – despite the accession of large parts of Southern Germany to the Zollverein in the 1830s, actual market circulations would have remained regionally bound (and claims of Raubdruck still difficult to prosecute). 139 of the children’s adventure genre in Germany should not be understated. In particular, he
translated and adapted many notable adventure stories for a Southern German readership,
including Marryat’s Jack, der tapfere Midshipman, Thomas Mayne Reid’s Die
Ansiedlerin der Prärie, Ein Robinson der Wüste, and Der Büffeljäger am Lagerfeuer;
Robert Montgomery Bird’s Die Gefahren der Wildnis, and—alongside most of his minor
novels—James Fenimore Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen.91
Unlike many of his predecessors and contemporaries who earned their keep as teachers, pastors, or private tutors, Hoffmann was a professional children’s book author.
This was not a well-paying career at the time, and so—by necessity—Hoffmann was a prolific Vielschreiber. Viktor Hantzsch describes exactly how much Hoffmann wrote in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie: “In some years he was compelled by contractual obligations to deliver more than twenty expansive stories, of which one may not infrequently observe, that they were pure commercial productions written with internal aversion” (“Hoffmann, Franz”).92 Critics and pedagogues alike maligned him for the
derivative quality of his work.93 Over his career as an author, he produced about 250 full-
91 These are only a few of the many adventure novels adapted by Hoffmann that I encountered in the Heinz Neumann Collection at the DLA, but give a sense of his role as a middleman in the transnational transfer of adventure narratives. 92 “In manchen Jahren mußte er infolge contractlicher Verpflichtungen den Buchhändlern mehr als 20 umfangreiche Geschichten liefern, denen man es nicht selten deutlich anmerkt, daß sie rein fabrikmäßig hergestellt und mit innerem Widerwillen geschrieben wurden” (Viktor, “Hoffmann, Franz”). 93 Historical and contemporary critics alike often emphasize the diminishing, ephemeral value of Hoffmann’s prose. For example, Hantzsch (drawing heavily on Adalbert Merget’s often polemical 1867 literary history, Geschichte der deutschen Jugendliteratur), concludes his assessment of the author for the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie with the following: Alles in allem genommen hat H. nichts von dauerndem Werthe geschaffen, keine seiner Leistungen sichert ihm trotz des großen Einflusses, den er zu seinen Lebzeiten auf die Lesewelt ausgeübt hat, für alle Zukuft einen Platz in der Geschichte der deutschen 140 length stories alongside many, many more short stories of all kinds. The mode of publication varied as much as the content of his works: some were released as single stories, others in collected volumes, and still others in children’s serials and magazines.94
Despite his critical reception, Hoffmann’s novels were a huge success—and Der neue Robinson was no exception. As mentioned above, the most significant difference between Hoffmann’s Der neue Robinson and Sigismund Rüstig was not its textual translation, but its visual presentation. Laube’s adaptation borrowed or copied the wood- engraved vignettes directly from Longman’s et al. As stated above they are, with very few exceptions, exact replicas of Marryat’s original format. Unless the blocks were stolen, it is safe to assume that Teubner purchased or copied them with the British printer’s permission. By contrast, Schmidt & Spring appear to have taken the process of reproducing Marryat’s images into their own hands and printed the Hoffmann edition with 54 lithographs instead of the 93 original wood engravings (Pfau, “Hoffmann, Carl”).
The main reason is likely a practical one: Schmidt & Spring had established a lithographic institute in Stuttgart and preferred to keep all of their production costs in- house. As to how the images were actually reproduced, there are two possibilities: either the relief blocks were printed directly onto the stone and touched up, or the vignettes were copied entirely by hand from the book. Either way, the resulting vignettes are
Literatur. Will man seine Schriften mit einem Worte charakterisiren, so thus man ihnen nicht Unrecht, wenn man sie als Lesefutter bezeichnet (Hantzsch). 94 At the time, Hoffmann also published a children’s magazine, “Jugendfreund,” and, starting in 1844, began releasing collected volumes for children each Christmas (Das Taschenbuch für die deutsche Jugend from 1844-1846, Der Deutsche Jugendfreund from 1846-1857, and Der Neue deutsche Jugendfreund after 1858). 141 inverted copies (mirror images) of their relief originals, numbered and printed two-to-a-
page and inserted into the novel at convenient intervals.
The overall quality of the lithographic images does not drop off from the relief
originals, and in some instances it is superior. In other words, the shift from relief to
planographic printing techniques does not make an appreciable difference in
compositional quality. The inverted text in the flag-hoisting scene (see Fig. 54) briefly exposes Schmidt & Spring’s strategy for recreating the illustrations, but this does not detract from their overall quality. It is in the area of formatting, not image fidelity, where this edition fails to keep pace with the high standards set by its source material.
An obvious challenge emerges from the decision to use lithographs—as the images must be printed separately on a different type of paper, they cannot appear on the same page as the text and so cannot be used as title vignettes or embedded in-line with the narrative. If the wood engravings in Laube’s Sigismund Rüstig reproduce the unified rhyme and reason of Masterman Ready’s text-image dynamic, Hoffmann’s lithographs disrupt it. As stated above, the vignettes are stacked and printed two to a page, then inserted into the novel approximately halfway between the two events depicted. This strategy keeps the visual interest spread out throughout the novel, but it makes finding or referencing them very inconvenient. Schmidt & Spring attempt to mitigate some of the resulting confusion by providing in-line references to the numbered images (e.g., siehe
Bild 3), but they remain fundamentally disconnected from the narrative.
For the third-person work scenes, this disconnection is not too disconcerting— though the daily routine that Marryat establishes via the chapter title vignette cannot be 142 recovered. The rhythm is lost, but the “appropriate distance” and perspective retained. It is much more consequential for those first-person moments, where the reader is invited to see the events unfold through the eyes of William (Wilhelm). The birds that William sees from the ship’s deck don’t appear until several pages later in the text (Fig. 56 shows one example here), Tommy’s antics disappear almost entirely from the visual narrative, and—perhaps most significantly—the buildup to the natives’ siege and eventual defeat is robbed of all of its visual pregnancy. In both Marryat and Laube’s versions, the textual and visual narratives are tightly joined and pull together to establish a consistent but flexible rhythm, one that, when necessary, can adjust its pace from the droll work routine to match the immediacy of singular moments of action. Hoffmann’s Der neue Robinson is fundamentally inflexible in this regard, and the result is an uneasy juxtaposition of two semantic registers that can do nothing but interrupt one another.
Schmidt & Spring appear to have reached a similar conclusion. The third edition of Der neue Robinson, released in 1854, abruptly shifts from lithographic images to wood engravings, and expands from its 54 lithographs to include 77 of the original relief vignettes.95 This realignment corrects previous mistakes (see the corrected flag in Fig.
57), and even reinterprets some of the original wood engravings (see, for example, the updated frontispiece in Fig. 58). However, the Laube translation published by Teubner remained the more successful of the two, and—even including continued print runs by
95 It is equally unclear how Schmidt & Spring acquired the images—a partnership with Teubner and/or Marryat would likely have been the cheaper (and least potentially fractious) route, but the myriad of minor improvements suggest that they may have been copied from either the Laube edition or reverse-designed from their own lithographs. 143 Schmidt & Spring’s successor, Karl Theinemann’s Verlag—outlasted Hoffmann’s Der
neue Robinson over the tale’s continued success in the nineteenth century.
Subsequent Editions of Masterman Ready in Germany
Later Germanophone versions of Masterman Ready are clearly indebted to these
early translations—a trend that can perhaps best be observed in their titles. Most
combined elements from Hoffmann’s and Laube’s titles or, in the time-honored tradition
of genre fiction, simply borrowed them. In most instances, they take Laube’s Sigismund
Rüstig as the main title and borrow Hoffmann’s Der Schiffbruch des Pacific as the
subtitle.96 Some, like A. Hummel’s Sigismund Rüstig oder Die Schiffbrüchigen auf der
Koralleninsel (Leipzig, Gebhardt), add geographic specificity into the mix. Others, such
as Friedrich Meister’s edition (Leipzig, Abel & Müller), simply borrow both titles:
Sigismund Rüstig. Der Bremer Steuermann oder Der Schiffbruch des Pacific.
These editions are equally indebted to the visual register that Marryat himself had
established for the text, regardless of their particular aesthetic inflections. The
illustrations for Gustav Höcker’s Steuermann Ready, der Neue Robinson, oder Der
Schiffbruch des Pacific, give a Romantic—almost comical—take on Ready as a cherubic,
child-adventurer. While clearly at odds with Marryat’s presentation of the same figure,
the overall composition in the scene where Romer is attacked by a lion, for example,
96 Two late-century illustrated editions are exemplary here: H. W. Georg, Sigismund Rüstig oder: Der Schiffbruch des Pacific (Berlin: Weichert, 1896); and Paul Moritz, Sigismund Rüstig oder der Schiffbruch des Pacific (Stuttgart: Thienemann, 1895). 144 remains the same between Hoffmann (Fig. 59) and Höcker (Fig. 60). While many of the
artistic sensibilities of Wilhelmine-era volumes reflect the sensationalism of many late-
nineteenth-century adventures, the allusions are equally unmistakable. For example, Paul
Moritz’s Sigismund Rüstig, oder der Schiffbruch des Pacific (1895) renders the above
scene in a manner more consistent with a Wild West narrative (see Fig. 61), while the
moment of truth between Ready, William, and the spear-wielding savage (Fig. 62) is
given a similarly sensational treatment.
CONCLUSION
The early reception of Marryat’s Masterman Ready in Germany is strikingly
similar to that of Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere: one high-quality, “official” version of
the work maintained its overall presentation over dozens of editions, and competed
against a broad “secondary” market of various adaptations and iterations that reflected the
gamut of publishing practices across German-speaking Europe. However, unlike
Robinson der Jüngere, whose textual form was retained while its visual accompaniment
shifted dramatically, the textual and visual reception of Masterman Ready appear
inseparable for over 40 years until late-century chromolithographic editions rise to
prominence. For decades, both the Laube and (following the third edition) the Hoffmann
translations retained the same visual presentation as Marryat’s Anglophone original and
mirrored one another. The result is a remarkable consistency between English and
German editions of Masterman Ready at this time. While certain (particularly later)
145 editions do reflect regional techniques and publishing priorities, it is difficult to
understand Marryat’s novel in Germanophone Europe as anything but a one-to-one
transnational transfer.
Several factors account for this. Despite their nominal British characteristics, the
“flatness” of the characters—especially given the familiarity of the robinsonade story and the overt connections Marryat establishes to another classic, Der Schweizerische
Robinson—allows for easy transfer. Marryat’s earlier reception by known children’s book publishers as appropriate children’s literature had also laid the groundwork for
Masterman Ready’s success. For example, Campe’s Schulbuchhandlung marketed many of Marryat’s other works in exactly the same manner as their (even) more didactic etiquette manuals.97 The German audience was thus primed to receive Masterman Ready
in a similar fashion to these familiar text types. The heavy-handed didactic structures
seen in Campe and others are still present, but their effect on the overall pace and tone of
the story is muted thanks to their brevity and the addition of more humorous moments.
These familiar elements, combined with Marryat’s celebrity and reputation as an
eyewitness naval commander, contributed to Masterman Ready’s early and sustained
success within the growing genre of children’s adventure.
Beyond adjusting to the structural and narrative norms of the robinsonade genre,
Marryat’s illustrations combined acceptable stylistic conventions with the novel medium
97 For example, Franz Hoffmann’s Erziehung und Leben makes no titular reference to its maritime source material, Marryat’s semi-autobiographical Mr. Midshipman Easy (1836), but realigns the work toward the popular genre of advice books (väterlicher Rat). The stylistic similarities between this genre and Marryat’s sea tales likely lent the latter an even greater degree of respectability among concerned parents.
146 of wood engraving. Many other works at this time appeared unadorned in their initial
publication. Masterman Ready’s illustrations combined stylistic continuity with a degree
of portability that shifted the onus for German publishers from the artist’s creative task of
visual re-interpretation to the engraver’s technical task of accurate reproduction. Like so
many of its peers, Masterman Ready could easily have been produced without images.
Unlike those same peers, it was not—the majority of editions in both English and
German appear either with direct copies of the original wood engravings or lavish
lithographs that allude heavily to those original compositions.
Masterman Ready’s consistent formal appearance in Germany is due in no small
part to its nearly seamless integration of visual and textual registers under a unifying
pedagogical aim. Marryat’s carefully calibrated presentation of realistic seafaring
experience, virtuous (middle-class) industry, and strategic encounters with exotic threats
appealed to adult gatekeepers and child readers alike. Marryat pays homage to
Enlightenment dialogic structures, but he doesn’t let them interrupt the narrative; he
allows his readers to experience fearful moments, but always keeps them at an
appropriate distance. As a prepackaged adventure experience, Masterman Ready was uniquely positioned—readymade—to find success in Germany and to push the familiar robinsonade in new directions during the middle of the nineteenth-century.
147 CHAPTER 5
Adventure from Concentrate: Visual Interventions in Adaptations of
J. F. Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales for Young Germans (1845-1883)
INTRODUCTION
Joachim Heinrich Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere and German editions of
Frederick Marryat’s Masterman Ready—and other exemplary extensions of the familiar
children’s robinsonade genre in Germanophone Europe—enjoyed commercial success
and popularity well into the latter decades of the nineteenth century, but their influence
on the development of an independent youth literature would be challenged and eclipsed
during the 1840s by that of another Anglophone work, James Fenimore Cooper’s
Leatherstocking Tales. Cooper’s five-novel series—The Pioneers (1823), The Last of the
Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer
(1841)—crafted an enduring, elegiac image of North America and its natives98 that would capture the world’s attention from the 1820s to the 1840s and inspire subsequent generations of German readers and writers to follow him into the historico-mythic space of the North American frontier.
98 A comprehensive overview of the German “obsession” with Native Americans lies beyond the scope of this dissertation. Suffice it to say that popular and scholarly debates on this topic began in the nineteenth- century, and continue to this day. Issues of accuracy and authenticity in representations of Native Americans—and the attendant anxiety on the part of German writers and readers to “get it right”—still dominate the discourse. For an excellent overview of this topic, see H. Glenn Penny, “Elusive Authenticity: The Quest for the Authentic Indian in German Public Culture.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 48.4 (2006): 798-819. 148 Unlike Campe or Marryat, Cooper did not write his Leatherstocking Tales—or
any of this other works—with a youth audience in mind. However, like much of the rest
of his literary production, the Leatherstocking Tales were adapted for a younger
audience, and—to the chagrin of contemporary critics and Cooper scholars alike—these
are frequently the versions that have survived to this day. For example, next to its status
as an American literary classic, the most successful of the five novels—The Last of the
Mohicans—is often also considered a canonical work of international youth literature.
This is especially true for the German context, where youth editions of the Lederstrumpf-
Erzählungen (first published in 1845) appeared within four years of the final volume’s
publication.99 As the present chapter will explore, the transformation of Cooper’s
Leatherstocking Tales from adult to children’s literature in nineteenth-century Germany relies as much on contemporaneous visual conventions as on narrative ones.
Another factor distinguishes Cooper from the other authors presented in this study: his reception in Germany over (nearly) the past two centuries follows two divergent paths. In one reception history, he is the first notable American novelist, a literary genius lauded by the likes of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Honoré de Balzac,
Hermann Melville, and Joseph Conrad. In another, he is a victim of the rampant, unregulated commercialization of the nineteenth-century publishing industry, which unrepentantly butchered the content and legacy of his novels through pirated editions. To
99 The first German-language adaptation for a youth audience was Franz Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf- Erzählungen von Cooper (Stuttgart: Schmidt & Spring, 1845), which was released only four years after translations of the last Leatherstocking novel—Der Pfadfinder (The Pathfinder)—appeared in Germany. The rapidity of this release is even more notable considering that the first American youth adaptation— Stories of the Woods; or Adventures of Leatherstocking (New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1869)—appeared nearly thirty years after the publication of The Pathfinder. 149 explore this complicated history, this chapter presents both strands of Cooper’s reception chronologically, from his breakout novels of the mid-1820s through the end of the second
“wave” of Continental Coopermania in the mid-1840s (around the same time Masterman
Ready made its debut). There are two related reasons for this approach: first, to acknowledge the overwhelmingly critical judgments in both American and German literary-historical scholarship on youth adaptations of Cooper’s novels; and second, to bracket that perspective in an attempt to move toward a more direct—and hopefully less reductive—engagement with the works on their own merits. In sum: organizing the chapter in this matter honors the author’s dual (and often dueling) reception histories but also allows the youth editions to speak for themselves without constantly judging them according to their infidelity to the source material.
The two earliest Cooper anthologies adapted for a juvenile audience—Franz
Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen (Stuttgart, Schmidt & Spring, 1845) and Adam
Stein’s Coopers Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen (Berlin & Leipzig, Oehmigke, 1846)—form the chapter’s core. Through my analyses of paratextual components in these and other editions, I explore how German youth editions rely on established visual conventions to situate Cooper neatly and unproblematically as appropriate reading material for the more mature German youth (die reifere deutsche Jugend). I then trace these conventions through some of Cooper’s lesser-known works that had enjoyed great success in
Germany as illustrated youth novels around the same time. By doing so, I aim to reframe the “lesser” of the two streams of German Cooper reception as a valuable children’s
150 literary history—rather than replicating the prima facie assumption that all it can offer is a story of scandal and shame.
COOPERMANIA: JAMES FENIMORE COOPER IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
From Cooperstown to the World
James Fenimore Cooper’s literary legacy is intimately tied to the forests, lakes, rivers, and plains of upstate New York. Born in Burlington, New Jersey in 1789, he and his family soon relocated to Cooperstown, New York—a small town at the headwaters of the Susquehanna River founded by (and named after) his father William Cooper
(Franklin, James Fenimore Cooper: The Early Years, 12). It would become the inspiration for many of his novels. James was born the eleventh of twelve children, but all of his siblings had passed away when his father William died in 1809, leaving him the sole heir of Otsego Hall and the rest of the family’s Cooperstown land holdings (4). With the exception of one extended tour of Europe, Cooperstown also remained Cooper’s residence for most of his life. Long before James died there in 1851, the town and surrounding region had become indelibly associated with his frontier novels and the author the figurehead of a nascent American literature (Franklin, James Fenimore
Cooper: The Later Years, xiv). How did he achieve this?
It was certainly not by design. In fact, the somewhat haphazard trajectory of
Cooper’s life and career(s) bears striking resemblance to that of his British contemporary,
Frederick Marryat. Like Marryat, Cooper was a willful child with a mind of his own and
151 a nose for trouble. At seventeen, he defied his parents’ wishes and their plan for his life
by joining the United States Navy (Franklin, The Early Years, 68).100 Following a brief naval career—during which he sailed to the Mediterranean and, as a commissioned midshipman, lived on the frontier base of Oswego on Lake Ontario—Cooper returned to his childhood home in 1811 to tend to his family’s estate. Just as an older, more mature
Marryat turned to writing after unsuccessful attempts to adapt to the settled life, the twenty-year old Cooper was similarly compelled to pick up the pen after failing as a country gentleman. Like Marryat, Cooper struggled with personal finances (xxxii).
During the 1810s and 1820s, outstanding debts from legal cases—many inherited from his father—forced him to sell much of his family’s upstate holdings, and the need for money became a motivating impetus for much of the rest of this adult life (ibid.). After trying his hand at administration and trade—he apparently bought and outfitted a merchant ship for yearly South Atlantic whaling expeditions from 1819–822—Cooper took inspiration from Walter Scott’s literary fame and decided to embark on his own career as a novelist. Like Marryat, he seemed to have found the perfect vocation—one that encouraged, if not necessitated, travel and allowed him to spin many of his formative, frontier experiences into successful novels.
It is widely acknowledged that Cooper’s early works transplanted and transformed popular genres from Europe to North America and established high expectations for his literary career. His first novel—a domestic marital drama entitled
100 Cooper attended university at Yale from 1802-1805, but did not complete a degree. Like his older brother William at Princeton, James had a knack for getting into trouble. He was expelled in 1805 for using gunpowder to blow up a fellow student’s dormitory door, and was later sued for damages by the injured party (Franklin, The Early Years, 51). 152 Precaution (1820)—remains little read to this day, but his second, The Spy (1821), was
an overnight hit—and one that may have secured his legacy as an early American author.
In one brief Cooper biography, Wayne Franklin calls The Spy—a novel set in New York
during the American Revolution—“the first successful American novel” and notes that it
went through three editions in its first few months (“James Fenimore Cooper, 1789-1851:
A Brief Biography,” 38). More importantly, “its public acceptance convinced Cooper that
he not only could contribute to current debates about national culture but also could make
a living from literature” (38). Cooper’s next novel, The Pioneers (1823), confirmed this
trend by selling “3,500 copies the first morning in New York” (39). With the publication
of The Last of the Mohicans (1826) and The Prairie (1827)—the next novels to continue
the Leatherstocking legend—Cooper moved from respected genre author to genre-
redefining innovator and international celebrity. Coopermania gripped Europe, inspiring
thousands of licit and illicit literary translations, adaptations, and continuations alongside
an expansive catalogue of paraphernalia.101 Cooper’s novelty had waned by the time his final two Leatherstocking novels—The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841)— were published in the early 1840s.102 Nonetheless, they inspired a second wave of
Continental Coopermania, culminating in the release of his complete revised works in
101 In his article on the Western novel as children’s literature in nineteenth-century France, Mark Wolff suggests that owning print copies of Cooper’s canonical works may have been a way for new readers (i.e., youth readers and newly literate adults) to purchase cultural capital (91). 102 In the preface to the revised edition of The Pathfinder (1851), Cooper attributes the relatively lukewarm reception of the final two volumes in the Leatherstocking Tales to the character Hawkeye’s disappearance (and apparent death) in the intervening decade. This gap in the life of a literary hero was so long that “scarce one in ten of those who know all about the three earliest books of the series [have] even a knowledge of the existence of the last at all” (vi). 153 1850–1851.103 To this day, James Fenimore Cooper remains a canonical author of
American literature and his Leatherstocking Tales the inspiration for many generations of
subsequent frontier novelists.
Visual Style and National Acclaim
What made Cooper so successful in his time? German Cooper scholars Karlheinz
Rossbacher and Irmgard Eggers note that his literary career coincided with growing
European interest in the people, places, and politics of a young United States of America,
and both the style and substance of his novels appear to have resonated strongly with
American and European audiences alike. Stories of the Woods, the first American
abridgment Cooper penned for a juvenile audience, acknowledges this reception in the
first pages of its introduction: “In Europe, the books which embody [Natty Bumppo’s]
adventures are read with an interest which no other productions of American literature
excite; and in our own country he not only charms the fresh imagination of boyhood, but
gratifies the severer tastes of manhood” (9). This international popularity often stemmed
from the same source, but differed in its motivation. For example, while Cooper’s
American readership may have yearned for a national story set in North America as a
means of literary self-legitimization; his European readership “reinforced this imperative
by their hunger for those same settings,” which to them seemed “fresh and exotic”
103 Cooper himself seemed resigned to this fact – in the series preface to his revised and corrected Leatherstocking Tales, the author notes, “If anything from the pen of the writer of these romances is at all to outlive himself, it is, unquestionably, the series of ‘The Leatherstocking Tales.’ To say this, is not to predict a very lasting reputation for the series itself, but simply to express the belief it will outlast any, or all, of the works from the same hand” (The Deerstalker, vi). 154 (Franklin 45). As will be explored below, many touted his skill at depicting wild landscapes and peoples in a potent, visual manner.
Taken by itself, this was not unusual for the time. Romantic authors and poets
“painted” landscapes and publishers used (and abused) visual terms—or signals, to borrow Irmgard Egger’s terminology—to attract potential buyers. Yet several factors distinguished Cooper from his peers. The first was biographical. Through venues like his own “Bread and Cheese Club,” Cooper was connected to a variety of writers, artists, and intellectuals in New York interested in a particular, Romantic vision of America (Barker
& Sabin 18). He was especially close with a group of landscape painters who came to be known as the Hudson River School, and became friends with Thomas Cole, who was to eventually paint three scenes for The Last of the Mohicans. John P. McWilliams notes that Cooper and Cole’s artistic exchanges were reciprocal: “as in many a Hudson River
School painting, Cooper’s novels repeatedly set up a character as the feeling observer of a landscape that is described in detail, either by the character or the narrator. Cooper’s words thus provide a stationary framed painting within which natural details are forever in motion” (29). This latter analogy evokes a second, closely related factor—Cooper was frequently lauded for his painterly qualities, or what Leland S. Person calls his scenic, or cinematic, imagination. In both instances, Cooper’s visual prose is closely associated with the ponderous, primordial vistas common to landscape painting.
Some early illustrations also reflect these visual priorities, favoring landscape over action. For example, Thomas Cole’s oil paintings for The Last of the Mohicans
(1826) are so landscape dominant that even foreground to mid-ground figures are nearly 155 indistinguishable from their surroundings. However, many more prefer to highlight
Cooper’s strengths as a painter of motion; his scenic imagination was not limited to
painting an expansive backdrop, but for homing in on the figures peopling it. The
author’s ability to capture dramatic tension earned him early praise. For example, in his
1826 review of The Spy for The North American Review, W. H. Gardiner observed that,
The particular talent of our author seems to lie in describing action and hitting off the humors of low life. Wherever there is something to be done, he sets about doing it with his whole soul; the reader’s attention is chained to the event; every other interest is absorbed in the deed, which is exhibited with a boldness of outline and vividness of coloring, proportioned to its importance in itself, or in its results. The flight, the hot pursuit, the charge, the victory, pass before you with the rapidity, and the distinctness too, of forked lightning which plays in the summer cloud; and the reader, not less than the writer, is irresistibly borne on by the subject (276).
In all of his novels, bold and vivid flashes of violence punctuate the melancholic
landscape of a receding wilderness. This combination may not have pleased all of his
readers,104 but its lasting impact on the Western novel is considerable.105 However, the
visual qualities of his prose were not always mirrored in the material presentation of his
104 In particular, late-century critics appeared much less enthused by Cooper’s style. For example, Mark Twain’s famous polemic of 1895, “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” claims that The Deerslayer is a “literary delirium tremens” that has committed “114 of the 115 possible offenses against literary art.” 105 For example, Leland S. Person claims that “even a quick survey of Cooper’s fiction reveals a remarkable number of scenes whose basic structures and elements we take for granted and seem deeply embedded as a kind of deep structure in our imaginations” (9). In a similar vein, Franklin notes that the full impact of Cooper’s literary work is often underestimated: “To later generations familiar with the western as a literary and cinematic form, Cooper’s innovations may be less apparent than they were at the time” (Franklin 38). These include: appropriating the military term “pioneers” to describe American settlers, creating complex and sympathetic Native American characters, and presenting the white frontiersman not as an “ignorant, self-indulgent refugee from society” but as a heroic symbol of the nation. 156 texts. The majority of early Germanophone editions for an adult, bourgeois readership
were either not illustrated or used steel engravings to reproduce the principle scenes in
each novel. Given the limitations of that medium, most images were constrained to close-
up or mid-range perspectives which compelled the artist to highlight one of Cooper’s
strengths at the expense of another, as I will explore in greater detail below.
Cooper’s Popularity and Reception in Germany as Adult Literature
Cooper’s fame in the United States rested on his status as a national author as
much as his specific painterly qualities. If so, why was he so popular in German-speaking
Europe? Previous studies frequently account for Cooper’s extraordinary success
throughout the German states by pointing to a lack of credible national competition.106
For example, in Leatherstocking in Germany: To the Reception of James Fenimore
Cooper by Readers during the Restoration (Lederstrumpf in Deutschland: Zur Rezeption
James Fenimore Coopers beim Leser der Restaurationszeit), Karlheinz Rossbacher
attributes the success of Cooper translations to the “particularly fortuitous literary
situation” in Germany, in which the contemporary German novel had “nothing much of
value to offer” in comparison with international imports (18–19). As the next generation
of Cooper imitators—Friedrich Gerstäcker, Charles Sealsfield, Balduin Möllhausen,
etc.—did not publish major works until the late 1830s and early 1840s, Cooper enjoyed
106 On this point, see Rossbacher, Lederstrumpf in Deutschland: Zur Rezeption James Fenimore Coopers beim Leser der Restaurationszeit (Munich: W. Fink: 1972); Egger, Lederstrumpf: ein deutsches Jugendbuch. Untersuchung zu den Bedingungen und Strukturen literarischer Transformation (1991. University of Vienna, PhD dissertation); and Klaus Doderer and Peter Aley, eds. Klassische Kinder- und Jugendbücher : kritische Betrachtungen (Weinheim: Beltz, 1969: 99-120). 157 something of a monopoly on the “exotic-historical adventure novel” (exotisch-
historischen Abenteuerromans) for over a decade (20). Others point to Cooper’s generic
roots and his strategic reliance on a “long European tradition of representation of the
alien and the primitive and on a more recent European interest in a fiction of the exotic”
(Wasserman 158). Both are important here, but perhaps less significant than a third
factor: the status of the author as an eyewitness expert.
Judgments varied widely on the literary-aesthetic aspects of Cooper’s novels, but
German critics and readers alike were consistently interested in contemporary
information about North America and lacked reliable German-language sources to get it.
Because of this, critical appraisals from this time are often couched in terms of reliability
and authenticity. For example, in a review of Die Ansiedler oder die Quellen des
Susquehanna published on July 21, 1824 in the “Literarischer Conversationsblatt,” one
critic praises the painterly accuracy of Cooper’s literary depictions: “from the manner of
the depiction we recognize its truth, just as one can infer from an exceptionally painted
portrait of an unknown person the fidelity of its representation” (qtd in Rossbacher,
15).107 While the reviewer also highlights the aforementioned visuality of Cooper’s style,
the emphasis is on the persuasive, mimetic quality of the author’s prose: it feels true to
the reader, even if the events are not, strictly speaking, factual. This is a sentiment shared
by Cooper himself, perhaps best expressed in the introduction to The Last of the
Mohicans: “there is sufficient historical truth in the picture to justify the use that has been
107 “…wir erkennen aus der Art der Darstellung auch ihre Wahrheit, gleich wie man aus dem trefflich gemalten Bildniß einer uns unbekannten Person die Treue der Abbildung behaupten kann” (qtd in Rossbacher, 15). 158 made of it” (viii). In other words, for early readers of Cooper, literary truth was stronger
than fiction.108
As newer reports from North America (including those from German-speaking eyewitnesses) continued to broaden European perspectives on the United States, its history, and its peoples, subsequent generations of German critics began to challenge the veracity of Cooper’s mythical-historical figures and the spaces they inhabited. As H.
Glenn Penny notes, a certain anxiety and self-awareness has always surrounded the
German discourse on North America and its native inhabitants—even before Cooper’s novels thrust them into the cultural limelight. However, this intellectual discourse appears to have had little to no bearing on how Cooper was commonly read at the time.
Rossbacher’s study suggests that most of Cooper’s early readers preferred a “more naïve” approach to skepticism in their leisure reading practices (17). He goes on to note that “not only the mass of readers, but also the critics” read Cooper in this manner (17).109 Irmgard
Egger also observes that the political dimensions of Cooper’s novels did not receive
explicit attention in the German press—that the author’s “critique of [European] civilization was received, but not his critique of democracy” (70).110 Whatever political
aspirations they might have held, it seems that many readers were primarily interested in
his novels for their North American exoticism. This points to the following, overarching
108 Rossbacher notes that, along with travel guides and journalistic “non-fiction,” Cooper’s novels played a significant role in establishing European immigrants’ expectations of America. For critics and readers alike, the author’s powerful, poetic, yet incredibly realistic depictions became the most significant marker of his storytelling veracity. 109 “nicht nur die Masse der Leser, sondern auch die Rezensenten” (17). 110 “seine Zivilisationskritik, nicht jedoch seine Demokratiekritik rezipiert wurde” (70). 159 conclusion about Cooper’s reception: most German readers accepted his depictions at
face value as authentic.
Perceived authenticity played a central role in establishing and policing the
hierarchy of Germanophone editions of his works. As has been extensively noted,
Cooper’s reception in Germany follows two distinct paths—1) the authorized and
unabridged reception of the original texts for an adult readership, alongside 2) a swath of
unauthorized adaptations—many of which bore precious little resemblance to Cooper’s
novels.111 Broadly speaking, authorized Cooper editions were published in German markets almost immediately following the American and English release, while pirated editions tended to appear at least six months to a year later. The disparity is even greater for youth editions of Cooper’s works, which only began to appear following the author’s
“second wave” of success in the early 1840s. However, when the first intentional youth adaptation, Franz Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper, appeared in 1845, it was also one of the first attempts to compile all of the Leatherstocking stories into one set. The five novels—The Pioneers: or The Sources of the Susquehanna (1823), The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder, or The
Inland Sea (1840), and The Deerslayer: or the First Warpath (1841)—had each been individually translated into German for adult readers within a year of their respective publications, but they were not repackaged as a compilation until after the author’s own
111 See again, Rossbacher, Egger, and Doderer et al. 160 revised edition was released in 1850–1851.112 As newer novels of the American
frontier—for example Sealsfield’s The Cabin Book (Cajütenbuch oder Nationale
Charakteristiken, 1841), Gerstäcker’s The Arkansas Regulators (Die Regulatoren in
Arkansas, 1845), Thomas Mayne Reid’s The Boy Hunters, or, Adventures in Search of a
White Buffalo (Die Büffeljäger, 1855), or Gabriel Ferry’s Die Waldläufer (Fr. Le Coureur
de Bois, 1850; adapted by Karl May in 1879), and especially Karl May’s novels—passed
Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales in popularity during the latter half of the nineteenth
century, the boundaries between youth and adult Lederstrumpf compilations became
increasingly muddied. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the second path of
reception had almost completely enveloped the first, and the “authorized” Cooper had all
but disappeared.
Cooper himself was acutely aware of this and took steps to prevent the stream of
unofficial publications in Europe (Franklin, The Later Years, xx–xxi). To secure his
financial success and popularity abroad, the author sought to establish exclusive
partnerships with select European publishers.113 This proceeded piecemeal: beginning in
1826, Cooper synchronized new releases between his New York and London publishers,
then extended this arrangement to publishers in France and the German states. This plan
appears to have worked in England (where translation was minimal), but was largely
112 Cooper’s primary English-language publisher on the German literary market, the Gebrüder Schmumann in Leipzig, is the only one to proactively number each new work as part of an ongoing set of collected works – all of his other German publishers waited until the 1840s or 1850s to republish complete anthologies. 113 This also applied to reprints and rereleases of previous works. For example, when he changed publishers in 1827, he licensed Carey & Lea of Philadelphia to reissue his earlier novels for an American public. Previously, unauthorized editions of The Spy appeared in London and Paris in 1822, and in Leipzig in 1824 (Franklin 41). 161 unsuccessful in Germany.114 For example, in the first year of its publication alone, The
Last of the Mohicans appeared in Germany in five German editions—and one English
(Rossbacher 26). In an attempt to prevent this from reoccurring, Cooper signed exclusive contracts with publishers in each of the major German literary markets—Wienbrack
(Leipzig), Franckh (Stuttgart), Duncker & Humblot (Berlin), and Sauerländer (Frankfurt am Main)—allowing his works to be published in English (London) and German simultaneously (25). By further synchronizing his works’ release across national markets,
Cooper hoped to prevent unscrupulous German publishers from beating his partners to the press by buying, then quickly translating the earlier British editions (Franklin 89). If this arrangement—common enough at the time—appeared sound in theory, it often didn't hold up in practice. As Egger notes, the British edition of Cooper’s Water Witch (1830) was released prematurely, causing Berlin publisher Duncker & Humblot to annul their contract with the author (65). The strategy ultimately failed to prevent piracy but—by tapping in to each of the major German literary markets of the time—Cooper succeeded in maximizing his potential reception and, according to Rossbacher, became the most- read American author in Europe during this time (26).
Cooper the Children’s Author?
Many pirated translations in Germany were adapted for a youth readership, and such editions are frequently cited by Cooper scholars as the prime offenders in a
114 Franklin notes that “most of his books still were issued in pirated versions that gave him no monetary benefit and often mangled his original texts” (“James Fenimore Cooper, 1789-1851: A Brief Biography,” 41). 162 particularly embarrassing episode of transnational literary history.115 While the specifics vary, there are two chief complaints: 1) the omission of huge amounts of source material leads to a subsequent flattening of plots, characters, and conflicts into highly conventional (and, from a twentieth- or twenty-first-century perspective, highly objectionable) Biedermeier socio-religious molds; and 2), the rampant misattribution of
Cooper’s name and stories in these works has completely obscured the original stories from German readers.116 Both relate youth adaptations to a variety of broader societal
issues, from the ethics of textual adaptation processes to the effects of popular culture on
shaping public debate. Given Cooper’s perceived authority on all things North American
within the information economies of mid-nineteenth-century Germany, narratives
attributed to him had a powerful effect on the public imaginary, particularly of
impressionable youths: “young Germans, dreaming of immigration, read his novels as if
they were Baedeker guides for their new land” (Wasserman 184). The stakes were high—
if the author’s reputation rested on his authority as a North American eyewitness, then
significant editorial changes made in the adaptation process could compromise his status
as an eyewitness informant, as well as the abundant ethnographic and geographic
descriptions his texts contained.
The chief culprits in these analyses are, of course, the authors of youth
adaptations. Franz Hoffmann and Robert Springer (alias Adam Stein)—who penned the
first editions of the Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen explored in the following section—drew
115 Once more, see Rossbacher, Egger, and Doderer & Aley on this count. 116 In some versions of this argument, youth editions are implied to be the cause of a caustic, transgenerational misreading of Cooper – one with particular consequences for the development of German discourses on Amerindians. 163 particular ire for their respective abridgments. Much of the resentment appears to be
connected to their roles as professional (i.e., commercial) children’s authors, as opposed
to the pastors or pedagogues who had authored much of eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century children’s literature. Both Hoffmann and Springer were Polyscribente or
Vielschreiber (lit. those who write a lot), members of a new, professional underclass
within the rapidly changing German publishing industry. Paid by the page, such authors
often repurposed texts from other sources with impunity, and relied on well-established
genre conventions to crank out high volumes of work quickly.117 Critics and pedagogues
frequently—and loudly—decried their work for its derivative formal and stylistic
characteristics. To give one prominent example, Heinrich Wolgast—a vocal, late
nineteenth-century children’s literary critic with little love for Indianergeschichten—
singles out the Vielschreiber Gustav Nieritz and Franz Hoffman as the harbingers of
youth literature’s demise in his polemical essay, “Das Elend unserer Jugendliteratur”
(1895, rev. ed. 1905):
Nieritz and Hoffmann have caused more harm than all Native American novels put together. These [writers] produce fantastic depictions from a world utterly foreign to the child…I shudder to think how much sense for reality is lost for young readers, how much hypocrisy is awakened and encouraged; I only wish to contend, that the reading of these literary monstrosities must—for the majority of young readers—lead to the utter desolation of their poetic sensibilities. (120-121)118
117 The next chapter explores the authorial practice of Theodor Dielitz, a respected Berlin teacher who nonetheless copied the same, reviled adaptation practices from his professional counterparts. His own works, Land- und Seebilder, borrow liberally from both the periodical press and contemporary adventure novels. 118 Nieritz und Hoffmann haben mehr Unheil angerichtet, als alle Indianergeschichten zusammen. Diese geben phantastische Schilderungen aus einer Welt, die dem Kinde ganz fremd ist…Ich mag nicht erwägen, 164
Given the lasting vitriol displayed here (a mere fifty years after the initial
publication), it is unsurprising that three of the five most prominent authors to release
youth adaptations of Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen—Robert Springer (alias Adam
Stein), Otfried Mylius (alias Carl Müller), and Karl von Prenzlau (alias Carl Zastrow)—
wrote under pseudonyms.119 Though over 150 years may have softened more contemporary criticisms of these adaptations—to my knowledge, no recent critics have claimed that reading Hoffmann’s abridgments will result in the “utter desolation” of young people’s “poetic sensibilities”—their overarching conclusions remain the same.
Even Irmgard Egger’s Lederstrumpf: ein deutsches Jugendbuch: Untersuchungen zu den
Bedingungen und Strukturen literarischer Transformation—perhaps the most measured and extensive examination of German-language Cooper editions to date—concludes that the various “deformations” in Hoffmann’s adaptation result in a “wide-ranging dismantling of the literary functions of the Cooper novels” (255). A representative selection includes: the flattening of nuance (Einebnung differenzierender Aspekte), the clarification of unclear sections (Verdeutlichung ungewisser Stellen) and elimination of ambiguity (Vereindeutung von Mehrdeutigem), the “disarmament” and trivialization of controversial aspects (Entschärfung und Verharmlosung kontroversieller Aspekte), and the general reduction to selected adventure episodes (die Reduktion zu beliebigen
wieviel Wirklichkeitsgefühl die Jugend hier einbüßt, wieviel Heuchelei geweckt und gefördert wird, ich will nur konstatieren, daß die Lektüre dieser literarischen Ungeheuer bei der Mehrzahl der jugendlichen Leser eine völlige Verwüstung des poetischen Empfindens anrichten muß (120-121). 119 Equally interesting is Wolgast’s perspective on Indianergeschichten, though one may reasonably assume that his chief quarrel is not with Cooper, but with the flood of cheap imitations that followed in the Wilhelmine Era. 165 Abenteuergeschichten) (255). Furthermore, all unseemly desires—but particularly extramarital attractions and dishonorable conduct—are either removed entirely or personified exclusively by unambiguously evil characters (323; 343). The end result is a predictably superficial adventure story populated by heroes and villains, where the moral and thematic shades of gray have been eradicated by an overwhelming “non-committal cheeriness” (unverbindlichem Frohsinn), and the “deadly operations of fateful powers”
(das fatale Wirken schicksalhafter Mächte) are reduced to a series of “arbitrary adventure skirmishes” (beliebigem Abenteuergeplänkel) (351). As noted above, by writing under pseudonyms, the authors of such literary “deformities” appear to have sensed just how radically their abridgments had changed the Cooper source material.
Intertwined with various content deformations, German youth editions of
Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales share another dubious trend: they are all substantially shorter than their source materials. Exactly how much depends on the comparisons made:
Peter Aley claims that some adaptations cut up to 90% of the original, Irmgard Egger contrasts the complete, 2,500 page Leatherstocking Tales to one-volume youth compilations of as few as 342 pages—13.68% of the original series length. These may be extreme examples, but, as the following sections will show, the average length of each tale is frequently—and shockingly—brief.
Despite the abundant criticisms of these works, the current study is profoundly disinterested in extending long-standing debates about the virtues and vices of Cooper adaptations on their literary-aesthetic merits. A better starting point is Egger’s begrudging observation that Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales “have been considered among the most 166 beloved German youth books for generations,” even though they were considered
contemporary world literature for adults up until the mid-nineteenth century (2).120
Regardless of one’s opinion about these works, this was—and remains—an incredible literary-historical achievement. While it is certainly important to acknowledge their particular violence vis-à-vis the original Cooper texts, this fact should not subsequently be used to delegitimize or efface the reception of Cooper in Germany as an author of youth literature. The distance between adult original and youth adaptation is significant, but care must be taken not to turn a measured analysis of that difference into some sort of moral-economic retrospective on mid-century intellectual property norms. Furthermore, a serious comparison between adult and youth editions must account for their paratextual components – particularly images. This is not a prominent feature of scholarship on
German Cooper editions. However, as most youth editions of Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-
Erzählungen are heavily illustrated, I argue that their respective visulizations have a significant impact on their interpretation and presentation of the adventure material. In other words, this Cooper—the illustrated author of youth literature—paints a different picture, and it deserves to be seen in its own light.
120 “…nunmehr seit Generationen als eines der beliebtesten deutschen Jugendbücher gilt, was bis zur Mitte des vorigen Jahrhunderts aktuelle Weltliteratur für Erwachsene gewesen war“ (2). 167 Frontier Illustrated121
What did early youth editions of Cooper look like? Since the 1860s and 1870s,
most German readers of Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen and other works could
reasonably expect an abundance of sensationalist action scenes with European trappers
locked in deadly struggles with garishly colorful Native American antagonists. These
range in flavor from the more neutrally rendered “native-on-native” action scenes (see,
for example, Fig. 70)—which normally pit recognizably “noble savages” against their
irredeemable, savage counterparts—to more sensationalist imaginings of red-on-white
violence that tap into a deeper reservoir of European racial anxieties (see Fig. 64).
However, they generally deliver on the central expectation of a violent encounter with a
terrifying and bloodthirsty exotic other. Another option, perhaps less profitable than
playing to racial terror, is the counter-point—a calm, confident European settler-explorer
cast in a friendly light and framed by equally colorful, but softer hues (see Figs. 65 and
66). This strategy evoked the well-worn, imagery of Robinson Crusoe—the industrious
European taming the wilderness through constant activity. These visual trends became
strongly associated with the Wild West or Western (frontier) adventure novel, and
continue well into the 1900s for Cooper editions around the world. But what did the
Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen look like when it was first released in 1845?
121 For a survey of nineteenth-century representational trends across oil painters in the United States, see Francis Flavin, “The Adventurer-Artists of the Nineteenth Century and the Image of the American Indian.” Indiana Magazine of History 98.1 (2002): 1-29.
168 Simply put, the answer is: very different. Like Marryat’s Masterman Ready,
Cooper’s novels spanned a period of publishing history marked by overlapping
techniques and stylistic trends. Yet there is surprisingly little scholarship on Cooper
illustrations—for youth and adult editions alike. Egger mentions illustrations only briefly
in her dissertation, but draws several broad conclusions. On the whole, she notes that
Cooper illustrations tend to vacillate between excitement and exoticism on the one hand,
and “biedere Vertrautheit” on the other (199). In her view, this tension signals “the
foundational structure of evasive-identificational reading...historical and yet still up-to-
date; foreign and adventurous and nevertheless not too remote or dangerous” (200).122
For example, Egger observes two major thematic clusters in Springer’s 1862 edition:
depictions of the domestic and familiar (Heimatlich-Vertrauliches) on the one hand, and
reflective-affective (Beschaulich-Ergreifendes) on the other (200). She goes further to
develop a typology of familiar visual-rhetorical strategies at work in the Lederstrumpf-
Erzählungen:
Alignment to contemporary aesthetic and fashion tastes; the inclusion of exotic elements; in combination with both of these, the opportunity to identify with the familiar and evade the foreign; a selection of decisive moments that produce tension and/or [vicarious] participation; active figures in the foreground…Further important characteristics for arousing youth attention include the conspicuous vibrancy and starkness of the illustrations, as well as the pathetic captions that strengthen the visual indicators and either (in a similar manner to the chapter titles) [repeat] memorable abbreviations…or auspicious quotes from the text…though the replacement of plates
122 “die Grundstruktur einer evasorisch-identifikatorischen Lektüre…historisch und trotzdem up-to-date; fremd und abenteurlich und trotzdem nicht zu entlegen oder gefährlich” (200). 169 with in-text illustrations does decrease their frequency. (200-201, 202)123
This study’s previous chapters have observed similar foci in the works of Campe
and Marryat albeit often used to different ends. Egger reads manuscript organization,
presentation, form, illustration, and publisher/author commentary as interrelated signals
to potential buyers and readers. For her, each of these signals fosters specific class,
gender, age, and genre identifications and associations—features that she acknowledges
are interlinked, but whose specific constellation(s) she does not investigate further.
Precisely that question, the relationship between the visual and textual “signals” Egger
fleetingly describes, will be the focus of the following sections.
LEDERSTRÜMPFE AUS STUTTGART: RESPECTABLE ADULT COLLECTIONS IN CONVERSATION WITH FRANZ HOFFMANN’S LEDERSTRUMPF ERZÄHLUNGEN VON COOPER (1845)
The first youth adaptation of The Leatherstocking Tales appeared in Stuttgart in
1845— the first adult compilation in 1853–54. This location is noteworthy, not because
Stuttgart was more or less infected by Coopermania than any other German publishing region, but because its own Verlag von Schmidt & Spring was a pioneer in the
123 Angleichung an aktuelle Schönheits- und Modevorstellungen; Einbeziehung exotischer Elemente; - in der Kombination von beidem das Angebot der Identifikation mit Vertrautem und der Evasion zu Fremden; - Auswahl von Entscheidungssituationen, die Spannung und/oder Anteilnahme auslösen; - handelnde Personen im Mittelpunkt… Weitere wichtige Merkmale zur Weckung des jugendlichen attentum sind nun noch die auffallende Buntheit und Plakativität des Großteils der Illustrationen sowie oft auch pathetische Bildunterschriften zur Verstärkung der Bildsignale, und zwar entweder (ähnlich den Kapitelüberschriften) einprägsame Kurzformeln…oder auch vielversprechende Sätze aus dem Text…wobei ihre Häufigkeit mit der Verschiebung von Bildtafeln zu Textbildern allerdings abnimmt (Egger 200-201; 202). 170 commercial publication of intentional works of children’s literature.124 Like many other
children’s publishers, the Verlag von Schmidt & Spring began as an offshoot of an
established adult-literary publishing enterprise—Carl Hoffmann’s Hoffmann’sche
Verlagsbuchhandlung. Before considering the various guises in which Leatherstocking
initially appeared, it will be useful to outline the formal and fraternal links connecting the
various editions, details which make their textual and paratextual divergences all the
more fascinating.
By the time Schmidt & Spring’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen were released in
1845, Carl Hoffmann and his family had already established a sprawling publishing
empire in Stuttgart, one that was, in many strange ways, connected to Cooper. Hoffmann
had built early contacts in the local publishing trade during his apprenticeship to
Friedrich Franckh and acquired much of his former employer’s store of novels when he
established his own publishing house in 1827 (“Hoffmann, Carl”). Franckh had—in the
course of Cooper’s search for trustworthy European publishing partners—at one point
secured an exclusive publishing contract with the author for the regional market
(Rossbacher 25). By direct purchase, proxy, or marriage, Hoffmann owned or was in
close partnership with the following publishing entities: 1) his own Hoffmann’sche
Verlags-Handlung (est. 1835), 2) Weise and Stoppani (est. 1837 as a daughter firm from
the Julius Weise Sortiment, then split into Julius Weise and A. Stoppani in 1843), 3) and
the Verlag von Schmidt & Spring (est. 1843 – a formal separation of the Hoffmann’schen
124 J. H. Campe’s Schulbuchhandlung (later Vieweg) in Braunschweig had existed for much longer, but its adaptation and publication philosophies were guided by its founder’s much stricter pedagogical principles. Cooper, it appears, did not pass muster as an appropriate work of juvenile literature, though Vieweg did publish a translation of The Last of the Mohicans in 1827. 171 Jugendschriften from the parent company under the control of Carl August Schmidt—
Hoffmann’s brother-in-law—and Louis Spring) (Schmidt, Übersichtstafel). Hoffmann’s younger brother Franz—editor of the children’s magazine Jugendfreund (Boyhood
Friend) and author of many of the publisher’s children’s books—was to join them, and would establish his (dubious) reputation through youth adaptations of many popular works, including Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales.
The success of Franz Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper was due in no small part to the strength of his brother’s publishing enterprise. Through the aforementioned publishing alliances, Carl Hoffmann had the advantage of printing, illustrating, and binding books in house for a variety of demographics. This position would only get stronger in the following decade: by the time the Hoffmann’sche Verlags-
Buchhandlung published J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane in 1853–1854,
Hoffmann had also acquired the Waltersche Verlags-Handlung (1846), formerly located in Dresden (ibid.). In 1842, he had founded the Stuttgarter Buchhändlerverein (Stuttgart
Bookseller’s Association) alongside Friedrich Liesching and Heinrich Erhard—owners of the J. B. Metzler’sche Buchhandlung—and was also instrumental in the creation of the regional Süddeutschen Buchhändlervereins (Southern German Bookseller’s Association)
(“Hoffmann, Carl”). A total of eight German publishing firms can trace their roots directly to him (ibid.). In sum, Carl Hoffmann had an incredibly powerful position within the Stuttgart publishing trade. This allowed the Hoffmann’sche Verlags-Buchhandlung and its subsidiaries to saturate the local market, following up a major illustrated Cooper
172 compilation for young readers with a comprehensive, illustrated anthology of his collected works in less than a decade.
One publisher in mid-century Stuttgart thus neatly captures both strands of
Cooper’s German reception. The following two sections compare the Hoffmann’sche
Verlag’s principal adult-literary edition—J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane (1853-
1854)—to Schmidt & Spring’s youth editions—Franz Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf-
Erzählungen von Cooper (1845) and its later guises. To better understand the interplay between each work’s abridged/unabridged narrative and its material presentation, the next sections will pay particular attention to visual paratexts and their interplay with the accompanying narrative.
J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane (1853-1854)
In Stuttgart, Franz Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper (1845) preceded a comparable adult compilation of Cooper’s complete works by almost an entire decade. Despite this substantial temporal gap, it will be useful to take a typical adult
Lederstrumpf collection as a baseline for discussing (earlier) youth adaptations. The following section explores the paratextual—and particularly, the visual—elements that frame and present J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane.
The Hoffmann’sche Verlags-Buchhandlung released J. F. Cooper’s
Amerikanische Romane, its version of Cooper’s collected works, as an octavo-sized (i.e.,
5x8”) set in thirty volumes between 1853 and 1854—two years after the author’s death
173 and the release of his revised edition(s). The German translations incorporate Cooper’s
own revisions, but the content of each book was not otherwise altered for the collection.
The volumes range in length from 187 pages (vol. 4, Der Bravo, Theil I) to 707 pages
(vol. 12, Der Wildtöter), though most remain close to 500 pages. They are all printed in
the same format, type, and style. The translations—attributed to Eduard Mauch, Dr.
Leonhard Tafel, and Dr. Carl Kolb—were made for an adult readership and hew very closely to the language of their source materials. The collection is otherwise unremarkable except in one respect: each volume is introduced through one unifying paratextual feature: a single, steel-engraved frontispiece from the Carl Mayer’s Kunst-
Anstalt in Nuremberg.125 It is that red thread that we will follow next.
When considering these images as a group, the (unnamed) artist’s thematic
preference for non-violent, noticeably subdued scenes is striking. This applies both to the
scene-selection process and the artist’s interpretation of those scenes. In many instances,
the moment chosen for illustration corresponds to one of the most pivotal moments in the
narrative, and the illustrator attempts to render such a moment with an appropriate
amount of visual decorum. For example, the engraving for The Pathfinder (Der
Pfadfinder) (Fig. 67) portrays the climactic death scene near the novel’s end, where Natty
Bumppo is granted permission to marry Mabel Dunham by her dying father. The
illustrator does not highlight the cause of the injury—the previous battle scene on the
125 The decision to feature engravings from an unaffiliated institute is most likely an economic one—thirty steel engravings may have been cheaper to produce than comparably sized lithographs in house, especially if the plates had been previously used. For more on the cost-differences between media up to this time, see Anthony Griffiths, The Print Before Photography: An Introduction to European Printmaking, 1550-1820. London: British Museum Press, 2016.
174 fort, where Sgt. Dunham was wounded during the French attack—but chooses instead to accentuate the dying man’s pathos-laden farewell. The eponymous hero, Chingachgook,
Jasper Western, and Mabel Dunham are all shown gathered around her father Sgt.
Dunham’s deathbed in the fort—the wounded man and his daughter with hands folded and faces uplifted in an attitude of prayer, Western is overcome with grief, and Natty and
Chingachgook stand and observe stoically. The figures are clearly affected, but not disproportionately so: heartfelt, respectful, and subdued grief is here coded as the appropriate response.
Other selections similarly defuse the sensational elements of frontier encounters by refocusing the reader’s attention to class-bound propriety in decidedly unadventurous circumstances. Perhaps the most charged scene, the moment of Deerslayer’s binding in
The Deerslayer (Der Wildtödter) (Fig. 68), depicts all of the characters in a calm, conciliatory state. This is certainly a defensible choice: at the apparent moment depicted,
Judith is attempting to negotiate Deerslayer’s release from his Huron captors. She fails, though they are both rescued moments later when the English arrive. However, as will soon become clear in the case of children’s editions, the selection of this moment—and its rendition of every figure in an attitude of polite, disaffected ease—stands in stark contrast to the illustrations of tomahawks flying at the prisoner’s head (compare, for example, to Fig. 69). Similarly, the frontispiece to The Oak-Openings; or The Bee-Hunter
(Der Bienenjäger, 1848) features a strategic conference between Europeans and Native
Americans before driving out the bees (Fig. 70)—not, as subsequent artists would depict, the chaotic consequences of doing so. If these images defuse danger, others avoid it 175 completely. For example, the images for Cooper’s most heavy-handed bourgeois novel, the two-part Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale and its sequel, Afloat and Ashore 2, also titled Lucy Hardinge: A Second Series of Afloat and
Ashore (Miles Wallingfords Abenteuer zu Land und zur See, published in two volumes in
1844) (Figs. 71 and 72) reproduce the domestic idylls that the hero spends the majority of both novels trying to recover.
In each of these cases, tasteful—if not particularly artful—scenes of familial bliss ease the reader into the comfortable and decorous realm of the story. Indeed, glancing at the frontispieces to this comprehensive collection of Cooper’s novels, an unsuspecting houseguest may be genuinely startled by the bloody chaos that frequently erupts from the pages within. This set is clearly intended for a respectable readership interested in displaying their cultural capital on the bookshelf on a reasonable budget. The frontispiece illustrations are pleasantly ornamental—they capture affectively touching moments without threatening to impel the reader toward any form of engagement beyond modest appreciation. The volumes include translations of all of the prefatory matter from
Cooper’s originals—including updated introductions to revised editions—and the title page loudly touts the translator’s bona fides. They also reproduce the highbrow literary quotations (esp. Milton and Shakespeare) that Cooper often uses as chapter or section prefaces in his original works. In this and the other respects mentioned above, every work in J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane appears to have been treated with the appreciation, care, and reverence one may expect to be accorded to an epoch-defining author. In short, the Hoffmann’sche anthology presents James Fenimore Cooper not 176 merely as the author of the Leatherstocking Tales, but as a wide-ranging novelist attuned
to the particular social and aesthetic sensibilities of his middle-class audience. As such, it
promises to be an ideal addition to any bourgeois reader’s literary collection.
Franz Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper (1845)
J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane may have been the first publication of
Cooper’s collected works to appear on the Swabian literary market, but it was not the first
repackaging of the Leatherstocking tales to come from Stuttgart. In 1845, the Verlag von
Schmidt & Spring published the Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper, a five-in-one
youth compilation by the Vielschreiber and Verlagsautor (house author), Franz
Hoffmann. Printed in the same octavo format as J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane,
the first edition totaled an ominous 666 pages and was released in two parts along with twenty unattributed steel engravings (eight in volume I and twelve in volume II). Though it was released twenty-two years after the first Leatherstocking Tale, The Pioneers, was published, Hoffmann’s German-language adaptation preceded Cooper’s own, English-
language equivalent by five years.126
Before leaping to the paratext(s), a few words should be said about the text(s).
From a children’s-pedagogical perspective, this edition is a chaotic mess and exactly the
type of work that the likes of Heinrich Wolgast would rage about in later decades. The
126 In this regard, the temporal gaps between the piecemeal reception of the Leatherstocking Tales as individual works of adult literature and their summative adaptation as a children’s literature anthology mirrors the gap between early German Robinson Crusoe translations and Campe’s children’s adaptation, Robinson der Jüngere. 177 individual “episodes” in this abridged “whole” are very short (consider, for example, that
the 666 page-long youth compilation does not even equal the 707 page-length of
Hoffmann’sche’s Wildtödter, only one of the five source novels), and omit many of the
side plots, characters and episodes that give the unabridged texts their great depth and
realism. Unlike early anthologies of collected works—such as the aforementioned J. F.
Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane (1853-1854) or Cooper’s own Leatherstocking Tales
(1850-1851), Franz Hoffmann does not provide any sort of series introduction or preface
to contextualize his work or its putative author.127 They are rearranged from their initial
publication order—The Pioneers (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie
(1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841)— into chronological order by
Natty’s age: Wildtödter (The Deerslayer; set in 1740) is followed by Der letzte
Mohikaner (The Last of the Mohicans; set in 1757), then Der Pfadfinder (The Pathfinder;
set in “the second half of the previous century”), Lederstrumpf (The Pioneers; set in
1793), and finally Der Wildsteller (The Prairie; set in 1804). Additionally, the last two
Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen have been renamed to reflect the hero’s changing titles: The
Pioneers, previously translated as Die Ansiedler, becomes Lederstrumpf; while The
Prairie, frequently rendered in adult editions as Die Steppe or Die Prärie, becomes Der
Wildsteller. Both of these instances reframe and reduce the stories—and the
Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen as a whole—to the hero’s individual frontier narrative, and
alter, omit, or otherwise render extraneous the wider world and its ambiguities. As noted
127 One may well speculate that this is a way of distracting from, rather than highlighting, Hoffmann’s hand in shaping the adaptation. As has been discussed previously, his name was—especially in critical circles—not an effective endorsement. 178 above, Hoffmann presents this without explanation—the first story, Wildtödter, dives directly into some “part of the endless forest which stretches east of the Mississippi”— and the author rarely pauses for contextualization or reflection of any kind, leaving the reader to sort out the details as they come (3). In sum, the text is left to speak for itself, and it appears to have little time for anything but adventure.
German Cooper scholars like Rossbacher and Egger have pointed to the many weaknesses in Franz Hoffmann’s adaptation, and they are right to do so. Yet whatever it lacks in narrative form, feel, or substance, this first Hoffmann edition does have something interesting to offer: a unique and incredibly dynamic illustration style. As the author makes no textual or paratextual attempts of any kind to explain, situate, or frame narrative events for a youth audience, these unattributed images are particularly vital in framing the young reader’s engagement with the Leatherstocking Tales.
Each of the two volumes’ eighteen steel engravings is designed in a similar fashion: a prominent central “panel” framed by trees, bamboo, or other natural borders displays the focal image, while small rectangular segments above and below this area— roughly in the space where a supertitle or subtitle (caption) would normally be placed— display small scenes that ostensibly take place before (above) and after (below) the main event in the center (see Figs. 73–77). The effect of this visual collage appears almost comics-like, but its semiotic legibility to contemporaneous audiences is difficult to gauge.
It certainly appears—as visually literate, twenty-first century readers might expect—to introduce a temporal continuity between the separate “cells” that suggests a more dynamic, parallel visual narrative than that of its contemporaries. If so, then these collage 179 scenes128 engage the reader in a much more active and frequent manner than those in J. F.
Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane, bringing established reader expectations (past knowledge) and visual foreshadowing into conversation with the putative main event in the central panel. Seeing the three moments in succession creates a sense of progress, a forward motion that encourages more immediate reader engagement with the narrative.129
Specifically, this format focuses the reader’s attention on particular continuities, ambiguities, and—to borrow Wolfgang Iser’s term—narrative Leerstellen (information gaps). Fig. 73, taken from Wildtödter, provides a telling example. The collage’s central scene—about two-thirds of the engraving—depicts a bound Deerslayer, surrounded by his captors and a pleading Judith, awaiting his death at the stake.130 Each figure is drawn
in a simple, straightforward manner and expresses an unambiguous attitude—Judith
pleads on her knees for mercy, the Huron torturer feels for the heroes heart with one hand
and brandishes his weapons in the other, and the remaining Huron spectators lurk in the
background, all while the Deerslayer maintains a look of steadfast resolve. This scene,
which would be frequently replicated in other illustrations, presents the climax of
Deerslayer’s trial—the moment of maximum narrative tension. However, the reader also
sees both the before and after of Deerslayer’s ordeal at the hands of the Huron—Judith’s
128 This term is borrowed from Tom Gretton, who uses it to describe composite images in the early periodical press. This is the only instance where I have seen it appear as part of a bound collection, however. For more on this type of image, see Tom Gretton, “The Pragmatics of Page Design in Nineteenth- Century General-Interest Magazines in London and Paris.” Art History 33(2010): 680-709. 129 This also plays into reader identification. For more extensive studies on juvenile (male) reader psychology, see Egger (ibid.) or Anneliese Hölder, Das Abenteuerbuch im Spiegel der männlichen Reifezeit. Die Entwicklung des literarischen Interesses beim männlichen Jugendlichen. Ratingen: A. Henn Verlag, 1967. 130 Though later German translations may colloquially use the term Marterpfahl (stake) for this scene, it is clearly a tree in this illustration. 180 conversation with the captive hero above, and the arrival of the English troops that results in their escape below. This does little to lessen the overall tension in the image, as neither
Deerslayer nor Judith is depicted in the scene below, leaving their fate a visual mystery.
Instead, seeing related scenes refocuses the reader-viewer’s attention on the most immediate question: what happens next? In this instance, the individual collage components work together with the text to amplify the reader’s focus on the experience of this narrative climax.
This focus does not always return to the main image, but can also lead out of the bottom scene of the collage, as in Fig. 76 from Der Wildsteller, where the ultimate fate of the hunters and their buffalo quarry remains visually unresolved. In other cases, it is more evenly distributed across scenes that are very close together in narrative time, as in the iconic clash between the mounted Sioux and Pawnee warriors in the same novel shown in
Fig. 77. In this instance, the small group of settlers surveys the Sioux and Pawnee forces as they prepare for the battle (above), which opens with the duel (middle) and continues below. This duel appears frequently in illustrated editions of Der Wildsteller, but almost always as a fight between two riders against an unanchored, blank background. In this rendition, the smaller settlers and combatants are—just like the reader-viewer— spectators to this clash (for a sharp stylistic contrast, compare Fig. 77 to the lithographed title image to Adam Stein’s Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen, seen in Fig. 78).
In each of the examples above, the steel-engraved collage scenes reinforce the immediacy of the Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen, drawing the reader closer to the emotional, psychological, and sensory experiences of its protagonists. This experimental visual 181 presentation makes the overwhelming sense of propriety seeping from Hoffmann’s J. F.
Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane (1853-1854) seem quaint to the point of being
reactionary. In an often quite literal sense, the difference is between sanguine and
sanguinary: if the illustrations for J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane prefer peace and
tranquility, the engravings for Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen highlight violence
and conflict. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this trend toward violence and sensationalism was
not amended, but amplified in later editions, many of which also come from Stuttgart.
The first edition of Franz Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen (1845) was a
great financial success and the Schmidt & Spring publication alone reached eleven
editions by 1883. However, this first edition’s unique visual format would soon be
replaced by more conventional renditions in the following decades. The following section
picks up on the next phase of the collection’s publishing history.
Franz Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper (1867)
Schmidt & Spring’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper was already in its
sixth edition by 1867. Not much of the text had changed in the intervening years. At 656
pages, it remained one of the longer Lederstrumpf collections adapted for a youth
readership, though the individual works—on average 131.2 pages—were still substantially shorter than their source materials: Wildtödter (The Deerslayer) covered 160 pages, Der letzte Mohikaner (The Last of the Mohicans) 116, Der Pfadfinder (The
Pathfinder) only 100, Lederstrumpf (The Pioneers) 114, and the longest—Der Wildsteller
182 (The Prairie)—only 166 pages. This same brevity is replicated on a chapter level, which divides the stories into digestible chunks of between five and twenty pages (the average length across the entire volume is 10.4 pages per chapter), and allows the author to impose a more predictable meter to the narrative(s). Like the first edition, this iteration of emphasized the hero at the expense of the depth, setting, and mood.
Beginning with the fourth edition (1861), Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper sacrificed unique format for conventionality. The Verlag von Schmidt &
Spring commissioned Ernst Dertinger, a local Stuttgart artist and engraver, to produce sixteen steel engravings for this edition. Following the prevailing children’s-literary trend at the time, Dertinger featured mid-ground and close-up perspectives of the primary figures in each scene, and used clarity and simplicity of form to present their identities and attitudes. The artist also balanced his scene selection, vacillating between exciting moments of action (five), moments showing non-violent meetings or transitions (four), and reflective moments of deliberation (seven). While the action can be quite terrifying in its content (see esp. Figs. 69 and 79), Dertinger’s stylistic simplicity and tonal softness often combine to severely blunt the sense of danger. In sum, the illustrations strike a tactful balance between adventurous action and child-appropriate decorum.
What Dertinger’s illustrations do reveal is a growing consensus around which scenes from the Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen should be accorded visual attention—and how. Many of his illustrations reproduce the same scenes from the first four editions:
Deerslayer bound to the tree (Marterpfahl) in Wildtöter, Heyward and Alice separated at the waterfall cave in Der letzte Mohikaner, Mabel and Juni-Thau’s first meeting (by 183 canoe) in Der Pfadfinder, the panther attack in Lederstrumpf (The Pioneers), and the duel
between two Sioux and Pawnee warriors at the conclusion of Der Wildsteller (The
Prairie). As will be discussed in greater detail in the following section, Gustav Bartsch’s
lithographs for Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen render many of the same scenes
from a comparable perspective.
Several of Dertinger’s designs appear directly indebted to his unnamed predecessor at Schmidt & Spring. In particular, the duel between the Sioux and Pawnee warriors in Der Wildsteller (Fig. 80) appears to borrow directly from the previous edition’s particular composition (compare to Fig. 77). Some details have been altered, but the relative position of the combatants remains intact. Another example, the scene of
Deerslayer bound to the tree (Fig. 69), recalls most of the particulars in the first edition
(Fig. 73)—but the scene has shifted in perspective to a more embodied view. Exactly whose it is remains unclear. Is Dertinger trying to bring the reader-viewer into closer perspectival alignment with the tomahawk-wielding Huron through an “over-the- shoulder” third-person view, or is the reader meant to share the absent Judith’s
(embodied) perspective? In both of these instances, the reader-viewer’s distance to the action is close, but detached—the figures do not gaze out of the frame in the same way that Deerslayer defiantly does in Fig. 73.
Most of the other scenes portray the dangers of the frontier world from a similarly safe space. The depiction of perhaps the most heart-rending scene in the entire
Leatherstocking series—the brutal murder of a helpless mother’s infant child following the surrender of the English garrison at Fort William Henry in Der letzte Mohikaner (seen 184 in Fig. 79)—appears a particularly gruesome outlier in this edition. Indeed, this scene is
so extreme that—to my knowledge—all subsequent illustrated editions avoid depicting
this moment entirely. Instead, artists tend to select from a list of narrative highlights—a selection that, given the truncated nature of most youth editions of the Lederstrumpf-
Erzählungen, is quite limited.
This tendency reflects larger trends between adult and youth illustrations. On the one hand, visual paratexts for a respectable, adult readership attempt to dress up or downplay scenes of conflict. They consistently evoke a clean, bourgeois vision of security and harmony—and visually unite all of Cooper’s novels under that theme. On the other hand, youth illustrations balance decorum with danger, pitting the familiar,
Robinsonesque forms of European adventurers (and their noble savage proxies) against a new set of nonetheless familiar, foreign foes. As we will see in the following section, this presentational balancing act would be played out again in new guises in the publishing centers of Berlin (Neu-Ruppin) and Leipzig.
ADAM STEIN & COOPERS LEDERSTRUMPF-ERZÄHLUNGEN (1868)
In contrast to Franz Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper, which experimented with several visual formats before settling on a more conventional style,
Adam Stein’s Coopers Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen appeared in the same guise across multiple editions and publishers. The collection first appeared in 1863 with the Julius
Springer Verlag in Berlin, but was also published by Alfred Oehmigke in both Leipzig &
185 Neu-Ruppin during the latter half of that decade.131 Both editions feature six lithographs
created by Wilhelm Schäfer from paintings by Gustav Bartsch, a successful portraitist
and genre-painter from Dresden. Bartsch’s illustrations—and this version of the text—
were featured for at least seventeen editions (i.e., through 1883).
Most of the same textual criticisms leveled at the Hoffmann adaptation apply here
as well, with one important difference: both authors omit significant portions of the
source material, but Stein does not alter or substitute the resulting texts to the degree that
Hoffmann does (Egger 318). This is borne out in both the total length of the work—380
pages—and the length of its individual components: The Deerslayer (Der Wildtödter auf
dem Kriegspfade) is 87 pages long, The Pathfinder (Der Kundschafter am Binnensee) a
paltry 56, The Last of the Mohicans (Der Letzte der Mohikaner) 70, The Pioneers (Die
Ansiedler von Newyork) 90, and The Prairie (Die Steppe) 76 pages. Like Hoffmann’s
adaptation, the chapters are consequently fewer and shorter—about five or six per story
with an average length of 14 pages each. The volume is also printed in the same octavo
format (approx. 5x8” per page), but with substantially fewer lines per page—32
compared to Hoffmann’s 47, ostensibly to increase readability.
This same concern for readability appears to influence the rest of this rendition.
Like Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper, Stein’s abridgment dispenses
with a series introduction, though the latter is marginally better at providing historical
context. Hoffmann’s series starts in medias res; Stein’s version of Der Wildtödter opens
131 It is unclear when Stein’s Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen first appeared with Oehmigke – the Prussian State Library in Berlin has publications from as early as 1870, which are listed as seventh editions. 186 with a paragraph sketching the political landscape and its primary players—the French,
the English, and the Native Americans—in upstate New York during the “last half of the previous century” (3). Subsequent stories are similarly given perfunctory introductions.
However, the only other preparation given to the reader comes in the form of the
frontispiece (Fig. 80), which features another rendition of the Sioux-Pawnee duel.
The selection of this image as the frontispiece sets the tone for the rest of the
volume. Bartsch borrows the body positioning of Dertinger’s combatants—one (the
Sioux chief and chief villain, Mahtoree) at full tilt, bearing down on his foe (the Pawnee
hero Hard-Heart) with poised lance—the other atop a rearing horse, his shield raised to
deflect the blow—but presents the two figures from a new angle. Whereas the previous
images (Figs. 80 and 77) presented the clash from behind one of the warriors (the one
with the shield)—allowing us to face his charging opponent head-on with him—Bartsch
presents them in a less partisan light (see Fig 81). While the lance-wielding native is still
in the background, the encounter is shown from a much more neutral, perpendicular
angle. Once again, the horse rears as the defender moves to ward off the coming blow,
this time it appears to fall away from the contact and to the left of the image. The reader
is detached from the moment—a neutral, rather than active, observer to the events to
come.
Bartsch’s other illustrations convey a similar sense of strategic distance, further
accentuated by their subtitles. For example, the illustration for Der Letzte der Mohikaner
presents one of the most comical scenes in the Leatherstocking Tales—the rescue of
Alice Munro (for some reason rendered here as Alix) from the Huron camp by Heyward 187 (dressed as a Huron) and Hawkeye (dressed as a bear)—from the point-of-view of a neutral observer (see Fig. 81). The reader-viewer is in on the joke, and joins the leftmost
Huron observer in his skeptical appraisal of the pair. While the tension (i.e., the fear of discovery) is present, so is the inherent ridiculousness of the plan. The caption reads
“Heyward entführt Alix” (Heyward abducts Alix/Alice), a further play on Heyward’s resemblance to the same Huron captors who had first kidnapped the girl.
Through these lithographs, the reader-viewer is encouraged to feel for—but not with—the protagonists. They may laugh or cheer as Heyward and Hawkeye save Alice, but the image does not accentuate the character’s internal fears or anxieties (indeed,
Bartsch provides no visible external threat to fear); they may gasp as Hard-Heart and
Mahtoree collide on the plain, but they do not share a stake in that fight. The closest
Bartsch allows his reader-viewers to get to the action is in his other illustration for Die
Steppe, entitled “Mahtoree im Lager der Auswanderer” (Mahtoree in the settler’s camp).
In this image, the Sioux warrior stoops over a prone settler, dagger held tightly in hand.
However, as the narrative will soon confirm, the threat is fleeting, and the dreamer escapes unscathed. It is almost as though the lithograph itself—with its clean lines, gentle shapes, and bright colors—is the product of that prone dreamer, a youthful fantasy that has the power to imagine the individual elements of an untimely demise, but lacks the experience to accurately fill in all of the details.
Later nineteenth-century editions—particularly those around the turn of the century that made full use of chromolithographed images—would capture these details in vivid detail. The scenes often remained the same, but the emphasis shifted dramatically. 188 Emboldened by increased mimetic capacities, such Cooper illustrations often abandon
old-fashioned bourgeois taste in favor of sensational violence (seen vividly in Fig. 64).
Unlike their predecessors in 1845, these editions not only had to vie with works by
successful competitors—Sealsfield, Gerstäcker, Reid, Stubbe, Möllhausen, May—within
the field of respectable youth literature, but experienced a second phase of growing pains
as they were repackaged for more popular audiences.132 Though they do not mention it
specifically, this is one of the unshakeable associations—the visual baggage—that
(in)visibly drags down youth adaptations in the eyes of Rossbacher, Egger, and Doderer
et al. Bloodstained, bloodthirsty braves stalk innocent white maidens; heroic trapper-
hunters face down rabid herds of rampaging bison; noble savages meet their menacing
cousins on the open plain. These and many similar scenes—all part of the Cooper
canon—have become the unshakeable bones of that author’s German legacy, the visual
shorthand that has come to stand for the whole. Like Cooper’s own mythic frontier, the
fate of his Leatherstocking Tales was to be forgotten by contemporaries, only to be
remembered by children.
EXCURSUS: COOPER AS GERMAN CHILDREN’S AUTHOR BEYOND LEATHERSTOCKING
132 Some have called this next generation of sensational, colonial adventure novels—stories in which the idealistic and poetic elements are jettisoned in favor of gripping action and blood-curdling terror—a reprehensible “Piff-paff-puff-Literatur” in which the “Niederschießen der Rothäute” had become a sort of “Sonntagsvergnügen” (Göhring, quoted in Wilkending 219). 189 Youth editions of the Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen—and particularly those with
sensationalist illustrations—have come to define the author’s German-language reception, but they were neither the first nor the last of Cooper’s works adapted for a
German youth readership. Beyond these five frontier novels, Cooper penned at least 52 other works over the course of his literary career, most of which were translated into both
French and German within a year of their initial publication. His expansive catalogue comprises a wide array of genres—including political commentary, regional history (of upstate New York—particularly the Hudson Valley), and European travel sketches alongside the more popular territory of naval adventures, frontier stories, and robinsonades—but again, none of Cooper’s other works were intentionally written for a youth audience. Despite this similarity, the consistent visual reception of Cooper’s other novels after the 1840s as youth literature is an important, but often overlooked factor in his reception history. The following excursus briefly explores how German youth adaptations of some of these works positioned the author as another acceptable addition to the growing list of trustworthy writers of youth literature.
To say that these works are obscure today would be an understatement. How many readers today are familiar with Lionel Lincoln? Captain Spike? Conanchet? Like their leading characters, most of Cooper’s less prominent works have long been consigned to the dustbin of publishing history, remembered only by literary historians and eccentric collectors.133 Yet some—like The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish (Conanchet, der
133Fortunately, many private collectors are particularly obsessive about maintaining “complete” collections. This completionist impulse means that many otherwise obscure editions are preserved today in special collections. For example, the Heinz-Neumann Sammlung of adventure literature at the Deutsches 190 Indianerhäuptling, 1829), or The Oak Openings; or, The Bee-Hunter (Der Bienenjäger,
1848)—became successful additions to the growing catalogue of North American frontier
novels, while others—such as Captain Spike; or The Islets of the Gulf (Capitän Spike;
oder die Golf-Inseln,1848), The Red Rover (Der rote Freibeuter, 1828), or The Crater;
or, Vulcan’s Peak: A Tale of the Pacific (Mark’s Riff; oder der Krater ,1847)—fit neatly
into the more-established robinsonade and maritime fiction genres. Given this breadth of
reception, Cooper appeared as an exceptional, but exceedingly conventional and familiar,
author of youth literature.
Part of this is due to consistency in illustration—particularly in cover and title
image style. The happy and colorful style typical to Alfred Oehmigke’s Verlag (Leipzig
& Neu-Ruppin), seen in Figs. 65 and 66, appeals to a youth audience’s perceived
aesthetic preferences.134 Characters from the stories are typically presented in moments of moderate excitement close before the real action is to begin. For example, the frontispiece displays the hunters hopping down the tree to prepare the fire (Fig. 66) that will, eventually, drive away the bees guarding the honey. Further images depict the hunters sighting the distant threat of a wild beast, and a European gentleman, telescope in hand, peering out onto the horizon, anxious—like the reader—to see what adventures lie ahead (Fig. 65). Friendly faces and bright colors mix excitement with safety—the reader
Literaturarchiv in Marbach contains 108 different adaptations of Cooper’s adventure novels spanning a staggering 39 different authorial attributions. 134 Young readers themselves were marketed to in this manner – it is impossible to say if they actually preferred such images, or if this was—as so many aspects of early children’s literature were—a set of preferences constructed by and for adults. 191 should prepare himself for a hearty, but not harrowing, adventure.135 When contact or
conflict looms, as it does in Fig. 83—the title image to Cooper’s Seegemälde (Sea Tales,
1865)—the figures do not flee in terror, but calmly prepare themselves for whatever lies
on the horizon. Like their adaptors and illustrators, the figures themselves are confident
that they are setting a good example for their young readers.
Read alongside these works—instead of against their “serious” counterparts—
early German youth editions of Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen appear strikingly
normal. If one proceeds from the assumption that Cooper’s reception as an author begins
and ends with the authorized translations of Leatherstocking Tales, then the dissonance
between youth editions and adult versions is bound to shock, even if late-century editions
try to strengthen the narrative’s perceived authenticity including native artifacts (see Fig.
84). If, however, one takes a broader view of his nineteenth-century reception in
Germany—one that accepts his appropriation by and for youth readers as an interesting,
literary-historical starting point rather than an indictment—then one can begin to form an
image of how he may have been received by German youth readers in his time.
CONCLUSION
If Cooper’s Romantic historical-mythical vision of a vanishing frontier registered
as novel to an audience of adult Germans, its formal appearance for both youth and adult
135 These associations become all the more prominent when exploring a historical genre collection. One of my strongest and most immediate impressions when visiting the Heinz-Neumann Sammlung of German adventure literature for the first time was the preponderance of bright colors announcing the volumes from the stacks. 192 readers was exceedingly conventional in its time. Both Franz Hoffmann and Adam
Stein’s illustrated youth editions of the Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen lean on familiar visual
and generic forms to blunt the force of their violent content, and recast a literary novelty
in an acceptable manner for its intended audience. By contrast, the engravings for the
thirty-volume set, J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane (1853–1854), preserve and
uphold specific textual moments that seem to be selected more for their suitability for a
bourgeois bookshelf than their centrality to the narrative they accompany or, as
frontispieces, precede. Rather than amplifying the reader’s engagement with the
experience of the text, these visual external focalizations (EFs) tend to transport him or
her away from it. They behave as decorous decoration(s)—while the youth images
(especially those accompanying the first Hoffmann edition) embrace character
focalizations (CFs) and brim with impetuous immediacy.
As I have outlined above, one of the most challenging knots in Cooper’s German
reception is the tension between 1) the early acclaim of The Leatherstocking Tales
amongst adult audiences and 2) their later, and ongoing status as classics of youth literature. It is the question of status, ultimately, that remains a problematic stumbling block. However, as I hope to have shown, both “Coopers” can be acknowledged simultaneously. In their expansive survey of multimedia Cooper adaptations, The Lasting of the Mohicans: History of an American Myth, Martin Barker and Roger Sabin, provide a useful way of rethinking “classic” works of literature:
Despite the rhetoric that surrounds them (of fine quality, the centrality of form, and so on) the most important thing 193 about classics is not their content at all. It is their name. To be a ‘classic’ is to be assigned a place in the calendar of saints…The most important thing about classics therefore is the way they are announced, they announce themselves, to us. What most needs study is their look, their feel, their publicity, and their manner of distribution (50-51).
When considered from this perspective, the transformation of Cooper’s
Leatherstocking Tales from international adult bestseller to German youth classic is a
fascinating story of comprehensive rebranding, not a tragic tale of misinterpretation.
Youth editions of Cooper’s novels are not exempt from the many problematic aspects of
his work, notably issues of racial representation that I have—for reasons of space—not
considered here.136 The thread that I have spun here is a small part of larger literary
histories that happened to cross in 1845, when Franz Hoffmann’s Lederstrumpf-
Erzählungen von Cooper first began entertaining young readers in Stuttgart. Many other
youth editions followed suit, and this particular weaving of Cooper’s stories about the
enterprising trapper and frontiersman Natty Bumppo became the most popular German
adventure story of the nineteenth century (Pech 156). Despite one’s literary-aesthetic
judgment on the matter, James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales has a long and
rich history as a classic of German youth literature. This story is an indelible part of his
legacy, and deserves to be told in its own right
136As many scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have noted, Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales popularized an incredibly biased view of Native Americans, one that would remain prominent in Germany for decades to come. For example, Klaus-Ulrich Pech notes that ideological image construction and a series of interchangeable elements from the larger, European reservoir of exotic iconography contributed to the creation of a racist perception of Amerindians that came to be viewed as self-evident (“[ein] als selbstverständlich wahrgenommenen Rassismus”) (157).
194 CHAPTER 6
Images of Land and Sea (Land- und Seebilder): Experiencing the World
Through Theodor Dielitz's Travel Anthologies for Young Readers
(1841-1862)
INTRODUCTION
In the 1840s, the German children’s book publisher Winckelmann & Sons
(Winckelmann & Söhne) began to release a variety of extensive anthologies by Theodor
Dielitz that redacted, repositioned, and revisualized commercially successful travel narratives for an audience of young (male) readers. These collections advertise exciting diversion, virtuous role models, real-world description, and a basis in the authenticity of eyewitness reports. Furthermore, they privilege visual excitement as the foundation for everything else: life-and-death encounters act as lenses that filter out extraneous descriptive detail and narrow the reader-viewer’s focus to the immediate experience of travel as adventure.
The following case study explores how pedagogical, textual, and visual foci converge in Theodor Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea (Land- und Seebilder, 1841-
1862), a nineteen-volume collection of adventurous travel excerpts for young readers.137
137 This chapter appeared earlier this year in The World of Children. Matthew Anderson, “Images of Land and Sea: Experiencing the World as Adventure through Theodor Dielitz’s Travel Anthologies for Young Readers, 1841–1862.” In The World of Children: Foreign Cultures in Nineteenth-Century German Education and Entertainment, edited by Simone Lässig and Andreas Weiß, 2020, pp. 57-80. 195 Theodor Dielitz’s Land- und Seebilder connects serial adventure narratives to moral
virtue via multiple, layered visualizations of immediate, subjective experience.138 The following sections explore these textual and visual filters that the author, illustrator, and publisher apply to the corpus of Western European travel literature in order to create a coherent, commercially successful series of children’s anthologies.
First, I position these works relative to the fluctuating pedagogical status of middle-class adventure. Then, I consider the two refracting lenses created by the text’s producers—first by Theodor Dielitz, who reframed and rewrote adult travel narratives for a new audience and purpose; second, by Theodor Hosemann and the publisher
Winckelmann & Sons, who further filtered Dielitz’s adaptations through their own visual idiom. Finally, I highlight the relationships between explicit pedagogical aims and their textual and paratextual realizations as a means to explore the collection’s cumulative presentation of foreign travel as a series of dangerous, exciting, and sometimes educational experiences.
THEODOR DIELITZ AND THE AUTHORIZATION OF ADVENTURE
“The role of the educator is to rhythmize the soul to [moral] virtue” (Dielitz,
“Ueber die erziehende Kraft der Schule,” 11). These words, given during his 1841
address, “On the Educational Power of the School,” to the faculty of the Königliche
Realschule zu Berlin, rather poetically encapsulate Gabriel Maria Theodor Dielitz’s
138 For more on this, see Schmideler, “Das bildende Bild,” 19-20. 196 pedagogical vision. For Dielitz, the two, overarching aims of formal education—to foster knowledge of the real world through systematic instruction and to acclimate students to a harmonious, moral life within the state—establish the rhythm, and the teacher the rhyme
(7). “By means of example and disciplinary action,” he states, “the educator seeks to restrain the child’s baser instincts and foster the higher ones and, in doing so, he paves the way for morality, which, as we have yet to show, can only be brought forth through education” (10). Positive role models and corrective practices—interventions from above—are the preferred means to achieving this harmony.
Dielitz embodied this urge to lead by example in both arenas of his professional life. While working at the Königliche Realschule zu Berlin, Dielitz devoted his extracurricular activities to publishing works for both educators and students. Like many of his mid-century contemporaries, he was keenly aware of the challenges posed by the sheer volume of unfiltered information available to the (young) public, and sought to address them, both from within the institutional framework of the Prussian school system as an educator, and in the commercial publishing sphere as an author of children’s books.
While his pedagogical musings and instructional materials remain largely forgotten today, his Land- und Seebilder enjoyed immediate and sustained success. The next section lays out the pedagogical aims and aesthetic frames that define Dielitz’s vision across his adventure anthologies.
197 Envisioning Images of Land and Sea
Three primary aims inform the Land- und Seebilder, each of which is either presented in the preface to each volume or can be inferred from the author’s general perspectives on educational vocation. First, his adaptations sanction certain adventure narratives (and their thematic foci) as appropriate reading material for children. By claiming a subset of the available adventure literature as intentional children’s literature
(and more specifically as appropriate reading material for young Prussian pupils), he interposes and asserts himself (and his pedagogical principles) as a trustworthy guide and mediator for child readers and their parents. A second, structural aim positions such acceptable children’s adventures in a subordinate, supplementary relation to the official regime of knowledge found in school curricula. This positions certain authorized adventure narratives within the hierarchy of institutionalized (curricular) information.
Dielitz’s third aim extends into the adult futures of his intended readership: reading his travel excerpts should serve to prepare young readers for future encounters with their unaltered source texts. The series of glimpses he gives into these works is intended as a more permanent filter, bending both child and adult reading (and viewing) preferences toward authenticated source materials.
Exotic Experiences, Virile Virtues, Authentic Adventures
The preface to the first of Dielitz’s adventure anthologies, Life Portraits
(Lebensbilder, 1840), advertises visual exoticism, moral virtue, and authenticity as the
198 most significant qualities guiding his process of selecting and adapting adventure
narratives for children. Each of these is nominally reader-oriented: they are meant to
reflect the general interests and experiences of a pubescent or prepubescent male
audience. Alongside grand views of nature, the likes of which “only a select few can
experience with their own eyes,” Dielitz promises a series of “circumstances” that will
“lay bare the virile pursuits and struggles of mankind” (Lebensbilder (1840), “Preface.”).
Such examples, he claims, will function as models for his readers to emulate, and will
“have all the stronger effect upon them, since the narrated events are—nearly without
exception—true down to the smallest detail” (ibid.). Appeals to the exotic, the virtuous,
and the authentic are made early and often throughout each volume.
Virtue and authenticity may rest at the top of Dielitz’s educational agenda, but
they are neither the first nor the loudest claims made. The individual volume titles are rife
with an array of spatial-geographical, ethnographic, and perspectival “exoticness.”
Regional varieties are the most frequent, but range in specificity from the straightforward
and descriptive—American Travel Images (Amerikanische Reisebilder, 1853), Regional
Images (Zonenbilder, 1852), Britannia (1856), and Hispania (1860)—to the Eurocentric
—Across the Ocean (Jenseits des Oceans, 1857), The New World (Die neue Welt, 1856),
and East and West (Ost und West, 1855)—and even the mythical, as in Atlantis (1862).139
A few highlight specific, topographical features—the Images of Land and Sea (1841) for example—while others accentuate the mode or activity of travel: Travel Images
139 Dielitz’s five “historical” anthologies—Germania (1840), Greece & Rome (Hellas und Rom, 1841), The Middle Ages (Das Mittelalter, 1847), The Heroes of Modernity (Die Helden der Neuzeit, 1850), and Teutonia (1854)—rely more heavily on mythic-heroic allusions than their contemporary, travel-literary analogues. 199 (Reisebilder, 1843) and Treks & Hunting Expeditions (Streif- und Jagdzüge, 1851). Still
others emphasize unique visual foci—The Sketchbook (Das Skizzenbuch, 1844), Nature
Images & Travel Sketches (Naturbilder und Reiseskizzen, 1848), Cosmoramas
(Kosmoramen, 1849), and Panoramas (Panoramen, 1849)—some of which make direct
reference to popular, mid-century visual media. Only two titles explicitly emphasize the
human subjects inhabiting these spaces: Life Images (Lebensbilder, 1840) and Ethnic
Portraits & Landscapes (Völkergemälde und Landschaftsbilder, 1846). As a set, then, the
Images of Land and Sea promise the reader a wide variety of exotic places, people, and
perspectives.
While Dielitz delivers on the first two counts, his “purposeful” selection of
“appealing sketches, in which instructive accounts and descriptions are tied to exciting
events,” privileges these “exciting events” as the dominant focal perspective through
which everything else is perceived (Amerikanische Reisebilder (1856), “Preface”). The
“exciting events” and exotic “descriptions” serve to capture the reader’s attention and
enrich his perspectives but are also meant to serve a higher purpose: the positive moral
formation of young readers. Dielitz believes that exhilarating examples of courage,
tenacity, charity, and faith will be most beneficial to this end.
As noted previously, this strategy was by no means new. However, by the 1840s,
strategies for habitualizing moral behavior through affective identification had become
subtler since the eighteenth century.140 Rather than relying on heavy-handed frame narratives or intrusive narrator commentary to guide the reader toward the proper
140 See Brüggemann and Ewers, eds., Handbuch zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, 26. 200 conclusion, Dielitz leans on (then) commonly held developmental reading models that
privileged travel narratives as the ideal reading material for pubescent males. In his own
words, the author defines this time of youthful exuberance as one of ideals, of striving
toward both the distant and the infinite, and seeks to align the experiences of his own
(unproven) protagonists with the experiential horizons of his intended readers (Dielitz,
“Ueber die erziehende Kraft der Schule,” 19). Everything becomes a trial, an obstacle, a
challenge, and Dielitz transforms exotic spaces into proving grounds, encounters with
unknown others into tests of the young protagonist’s virile attributes. The young reader
and the focalizing figure are meant to share the affective experience of initiation—in
whatever geographic context it may occur.141
This strategy of affective identification is further amplified by the brief and
episodic structure of the volumes. According to Peter Hasubek and others, the rapid
succession of episodes is analogous to the pubescent and prepubescent phases of
heightened mental desire (Hasubek 7).142 The brevity of each sketch, its focus on a
central, climactic event, and the selective inclusion of peripheral details adding to the
strange, exotic, and dangerous circumstances at hand all further accentuate the proximity
between diegetic and exegetic experience. 143
141 For comparison, see Seidler, “Theodor Dielitz’ Land- und Seebilder,” 71. 142 For a systematic study on the same topic, see Hölder, Das Abenteuerbuch. 143 This percentage, along with subsequent references to statistical data on the Dielitz volumes, is derived from a 17-volume data set generated with the Dielitz anthologies in the Sammlung Heinz Neumann (a more than 5,000-volume collection of historical adventure literature) at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach. A simple comparison across the 17-volume data set yields an average of 7.68 pages per chapter. On average, each volume contains 46.29 chapters and has a total length of 316 pages. 201 Harnessing affective, psychological “relatability” to moral ends seems to be
Dielitz’s primary means of reaching his audience. However, he also goes to great lengths
to proclaim the veracity of his narratives: they are, he says, “nearly without exception—
true down to the smallest detail” (Lebensbilder, “Preface”). While he was allegedly
offered the chance to travel abroad in a state capacity, there is no evidence to suggest that
Dielitz himself ever traveled to any of the places he references. Like the rest of the
reading public, the author is utterly dependent on the quality (and veracity) of his
“eyewitness” sources as the primary guarantors of the geographical and ethnographical
“authenticity” of his stories.
To this end, he selectively borrows from successful, contemporary travel writers,
most notably the French author Gabriel Ferry, Anglophone writers Thomas Mayne Reid,
William Gilmore Simms, James Fenimore Cooper, and Frederick Marryat; and
contemporary Germanophone successes Charles Sealsfield, Friedrich Gerstäcker, and
Ludwig Bechstein. He also claims to derive many of his other stories from English,
French, and German literary magazines, though he only—and infrequently—mentions
two sources by name: The Magazine for Foreign Literature (Das Magazin für
ausländische Literatur) and The Karlsruhe Conversation Paper (Das Karlsruher
Unterhaltungsblatt).
In spite of—or perhaps due to—the widespread acclaim and perceived credibility of these sources, Dielitz is often coy when discussing both his material starting points and the adaptation process. For the most part, he is careful to acknowledge established writers by name—and often makes explicit references to the specific chapters or sections of 202 works that he has borrowed from—but he is frequently vague regarding magazine and
newspaper sources. In one instance, he claims that “a few sections are entirely my own
work, the rest, on the other hand, are borrowed from the reports of English, French, and
German travelers, and have only been altered by me with regard to the form dictated by
the goal of this book” (Lebensbilder, “Preface”) At other times, his lack of clarity seems
intentionally flippant: anticipating concern for absent references to the “exciting events”
at the center of his narratives, Dielitz casually remarks that, “if a name is missing,” then
“the tale was taken from some magazine or other” (Ost und West (1855), “Preface”).
In any case, there is a considerable discrepancy between the amount of material
explicitly attributed to a particular author or work—approximately 30 percent of the total
page count—and the rest, which is only implicitly accounted for.144 This figure does not include countless details conspicuously added—sometimes organically, often rather clumsily—to bring some supplemental, descriptive “fiber” to the narrative as it progresses toward the exciting moment.
A cynical explanation for the discrepancy is that, by being intentionally unspecific, Dielitz could use the status of celebrated sources as cover for both the accuracy and quality of his adaptations. Another more likely explanation is that the veracity of the stories simply did not matter to many readers (or authors), as long as the claim to authenticity had been made at some point. His publisher, Winckelmann & Sons, seems well aware of this. For example, in the preface to the sixth edition of Nature
144 Page percentage values were generated for each volume based on the author’s explicit reference to sources in both the prefatory matter and table of contents. Across all volumes, a sum total of 1,649 of 5,372 pages of material – or 30.6962 percent – was explicitly linked to an identified source. 203 Images & Travel Sketches (Naturbilder und Reiseskizzen für die Jugend, 1890), the editors observe that the Dielitz anthologies have remained appealing to their audience over the years, even when “circumstances in the depicted regions have changed in some respects” (Naturbilder u. Reiseskizzen für die Jugend (1890), “Preface”) Here, we see a pragmatic adjustment from the criterion of authenticity to that of being authenticated or authorized, one that also alludes to broader shifts in the status of information under the auspices of two institutional gatekeepers: the publisher and—as the next section will explore—the school.
Adventure as Extracurricular Supplement
While Dielitz was a successful children’s author, he did not—like some of his mid-century contemporaries—scratch out a living solely as a so-called mass production author (Vielschreiber or Polyscribent). He was, first and foremost, a teacher. His career at the Königliche Realschule zu Berlin began in 1835, when he accepted a teaching post for history and geography. Over time, Dielitz rose within the institutional hierarchy, becoming a professor in 1844, superintendent—of all Berlin schools—in 1846, member of the Prussian National Assembly in 1848, and eventually succeeding August Spilleke as headmaster of the Königliche Realschule in 1849 (“Dielitz, Gabriel Maria Theodor”). All of Dielitz’s travel anthologies were produced parallel to his active employment in these institutional roles.
204 As the previous section asserts, one of Dielitz’s primary goals with the Land- und
Seebilder is to interpose himself as an arbiter of “good” adventure. A secondary goal —
and one not mentioned in the anthologies themselves—is to position these works and
their consumption into a complementary, symbiotic relationship to the structured,
dissemination of knowledge in the school setting. The ideal connection to his own
institutional framework was through the subject of geography, which was only taught
from the sexta to the obertertia, or the first five years of secondary education.145 The age
demographic for these lessons overlaps neatly with that of his target audience of
(roughly) nine- to fifteen-year-old, middle-class male students. Given the relatively brief
emphasis on the subject within the overall curriculum,146 it is easy to see how the
institutional impulse to present a complete, synchronic world geography would be
frustrated by the sheer volume of available material.
Dielitz grapples with this problem most explicitly in his brief Outline of World
History for Gymnasia and Realschulen (Grundriss der Weltgeschichte für Gymnasien
und Realschulen, 1850), in which he attempts to provide a concise summary of world
history in a single volume. Despite his avowed goal to finally create a “manageable”
history book for students, he must concede defeat on the very first page of his preface: he
too has erred by including too much rather than too little (iii). A solution to this problem
appears in his historical anthologies, where Dielitz explicitly advances supplemental
145 In contemporary German Gymnasien, this roughly corresponds to grades five to ten (the Unter- and Mittelstufen), or from between the ages of ten and sixteen. 146 Like most of its contemporaries, the curriculum at the Königliche Realschule focused primarily on classical languages (Latin, Greek, Hebrew) and applied sciences (mathematics and physics), with additional courses in religion, French, history, and philosophy. 205 leisure reading as an appropriate supplement to the official history curriculum. By
exhibiting an array of fascinating historical details in his anthologies, Dielitz claims, he
can paint vivid portraits of historical heroes that far exceed the “faint outlines” offered by
history lessons.
This supplementary role is also intended to establish a positive feedback loop
between curricular and extracurricular learning—again by recourse to affect regulation.
Ideally, this would feed directly into the immediate experience of the student, but it can also serve as an introduction to younger readers: while the texts seem tailored toward his
own history students, Dielitz assures all of his readers that the works are embedded in a
series of descriptions, so that “even those without any previous historical knowledge”
will find them “intelligible and appealing” (Die Helden der Neuzeit (1850), “Preface”). In
this instance it is the pedagogical mission of shaping extracurricular interest(s)—not the
specific contents of the stories—that links the curricular to the extracurricular.
The same relationship applies to the Land- und Seebilder, whose organizing
principle is more than a mere extension of the geography curriculum. In fact, one of
Dielitz’s implicit organizational goals is precisely the opposite: to supplement the
monotonous, systematic treatment of particular geographical regions with something
formally distinct. He does so structurally in two ways: first, by ensuring that successive
stories set in the same region do not share the same content focus (for example, they use a
different type of exciting event); and second, by limiting the length of each individual
narrative as much as possible (Brüggemann and Ewers, Handbuch zur Kinder- und
Jugendliteratur, 34). Dielitz also appears ashamed to present too many successive stories 206 with content from the same corner of the globe. For example, in the preface to the Treks
& Hunting Expeditions (1851), he admits that he has “dedicated a more significant amount of space to the Orient than in previous [volumes]” but immediately reassures the reader that it also contains “travel depictions and hunting scenes from other parts of the world, so that it is not lacking in variety” (Streif- und Jagdzüge für die Jugend (1851),
“Preface”). Fleeting, focused narratives and vacillating forms present information in brief, easily digestible bites that can be enjoyed in a variety of settings at leisure.
By situating the Land- und Seebilder as a supplement to institutional learning,
Dielitz acknowledges that two spheres of knowledge production—one curricular and one commercial—were becoming more distinct, and that significant influence in both spheres was necessary to achieve his overall pedagogical aim. The Land- und Seebilder effectively position themselves as a vital but supplemental reservoir of authenticated global knowledge for young male readers, an authorized filter for the excess of entertaining, extracurricular narratives circulating the pre-colonial German knowledge economy that builds critical interest in global knowledge but always feeds back into the institutional control of the school curriculum.
Repetitive Reading, Repetitive Viewing
While the formal, thematic, educational, and entertaining elements of these works all converge on the experience of the young male reader and his moral formation, Dielitz also considers the long-term, commercial impacts of his works vis-à-vis the travel
207 literature genre. In the preface to Regional Images (Zonenbilder, 1852) the author alludes
to another extracurricular desire: to use his adaptations as a bridge that will “revitalize a
taste for reading travelogues” by winning over younger readers (“Preface”). In effect,
Dielitz wants to steer his target audience’s current and future textual preferences—
eyewitness, reportage-length travel narratives with detailed descriptions centered on
exciting events—toward these same criteria for the long term.
As the subsequent sections will illustrate, these works seek to train future readers
by recalling previous viewing experiences—specifically, of illustrated children’s books
they read when younger. What Dielitz offers his (pre)pubescent readers is less a series of
travel narratives and more a collection of adventure impressions, a repetitive series of
ephemeral glimpses intended not only to reflect but to focalize the interests, desires, and
experiential horizons of young male readers. The titles, subtitles, and prefatory outlines
are rife with all manner of visual descriptors, ranging from the general—depictions
(Darstellungen), images (Bilder), paintings (Gemälde), portrayals (Schilderungen),
sketches (Skizzen), and scenes (Szenen)—to the genre-specific: cosmoramas
(Kosmoramen), panoramas (Panoramen), and landscapes (Landschaften).147 Yet unlike
the isolated objects often presented in ABC books or encyclopedia sets, the images in
Dielitz’s stories are fundamentally active. The repeated emphasis on the climax of each
story acts as the refracting lens through which everything else is always filtered.148
147 For a similar survey, see Schmideler, “Verlag Winckelmann & Söhne” 9. 148 See Seidler, “Theodor Dielitz’ Land- und Seebilder,” 71. For more on the relationship between mental and material visualizations, see Schmideler, “Das bildende Bild,” 14. 208 THEODOR HOSEMANN AND THE BILDERFABRIK OF WINCKELMANN & SONS
Illustrations play a prominent role in the Land- und Seebilder, as they do in all of the books published by Winckelmann & Sons. In her biography of the Berlin illustrator
Theodor Hosemann (1807–1875), Ingeborg Becker aptly describes the publishing house as a veritable Bilderfabrik, a factory for producing images (11). Throughout its 100-year existence (1828-1929), the publishing house became best known for its extensive and diverse catalogue of visual products for children: school maps, blueprints, plans, instruction manuals for drawing and painting, coloring books, Volksbilder, portraits, pictures of saints, Bilderbögen (sheets of pictures, often in a series), theater decorations, peepshow images, and, of course, illustrated children’s books (Wegehaupt, Der Verlag
Winckelmann & Söhne, 8). The quality and sheer diversity of their offerings are likely what enabled Winckelmann & Sons to produce exclusively for a child readership (5).
The publisher’s success would have been impossible if not for the prolific efforts of the illustrator Theodor Hosemann. After he had learned his art at Arnz & Company’s lithographic institute in Düsseldorf, Hosemann followed Johann Christian Winckelmann to Berlin in 1828 to become the official “in-house” illustrator for the latter’s new publishing enterprise, Winckelmann & Sons. As the principle illustrator for the publisher,
Hosemann had a regular commission of eight lithographs per book, each of which he both designed and drew on the stone (4). In this capacity, Hosemann illustrated approximately half of the publisher’s picturebooks, including all of Theodor Dielitz’s anthologies for young readers (7). Considering Winckelmann & Sons’ early commercial successes, it may well be feasible to posit young readers whose own reservoirs of visual 209 imagery had been nourished on a steady diet of Hosemann’s lithographs since before they
could read.149 As suggested above, their potential as a perspectival bridge beyond the
intended age demographic of the Dielitz volumes is equally conceivable.
While his “Views of Berlin” (“Berliner Ansichten”) have been well received by
generations of art historians, Hosemann’s illustrations for Dielitz’s adventure anthologies
are not generally praised for their aesthetic refinement. The most charitable critics
describe them as “quite pedantic” and “drily instructive,” while others claim that the very
act of producing them at all damaged the lithographer’s artistic reputation in a “not
insignificant manner” (Wirth 10; Geister iii). Others see in Hosemann a casualty of the
growing economic necessity of continuous productivity—sometimes referred to as the
“factory activity” of mid-century publishers—which often led to substantial decreases in
the quality and variety of both illustrations and their textual guidelines (Künnemann 572).
Unassailable aesthetic quality, however, does not appear to have been a significant
criterion to his readers, and even his staunchest critics admit that Hosemann’s
illustrations contributed significantly to the wide distribution and extended print runs of
the Dielitz anthologies (Rabenstein 314). Furthermore, if trends among book collectors
are any indication, the sustained commercial popularity of these works testifies to their
immediate and sustained appeal (Seyffert 6).
The emphasis on clarity, accuracy, and simplicity—all typical means by which
nineteenth-century illustrators tried to curate visually digestible and pedagogically
149 Schmideler claims that lithography’s presentational innovation(s) shaped the visual perspectives of entire generations (“Verlag Winckelmann & Söhne,” 1). 210 valuable images for children—in Hosemann’s work “betrays no [grand] artistic ambitions,” but his strategic restraint plays a significant role in further guiding interpretation (Ries 306). The intended effect is to foster immediate interpretive accessibility: by refraining from any and all fantastical elements and rooting the portrayals of such unusual elements firmly in the solid ground of reality, the young reader is left to “transform that which [is] read into real experience” (Brieger 45). Combined with a high degree of verisimilitude vis-à-vis the depicted content, Hosemann’s stylistic program appears to complement the author’s emphasis on accuracy by giving visual witness to the eyes of the reader. The relationship between text and illustration (Theodor
Dielitz and Theodor Hosemann) here is straightforward, hierarchical (that is, text determines image), and complementary: by providing the reader with the appropriate frame for viewing the narrative, its illustrations behave predictably relative to their established textual parameters.
Dielitz’s own pedagogical goals and interpretive decisions do have a strong influence on the Hosemann lithographs that appear beside them in the Land- und
Seebilder, but—to borrow an expression from W. J. T. Mitchell—the specific nature of the “weave, the relation of warp and woof” between word and image is more complex than it appears (Iconology 43). To unravel some of this complexity, the following touches on the most significant textual and visual interweavings across Dielitz’s Land- und
Seebilder.
211 VISUALIZED VIRTUES AND PARATEXTUAL PROVINGS
Hosemann’s illustrations share interpretive priorities similar to those of Dielitz’s adaptations. Ultimately, they aim to elevate the exciting event and valorize the particular set of virtues necessary to prevail in that moment, without sacrificing accuracy. For
Hosemann, clarity of form belies clarity—and hierarchy—of function, and is intended to prevent interpretive ambiguity. By cleanly and prominently depicting key figures and their exegetic relationships in the compositional foreground and leaving extraneous, topographic details to the background and periphery, each illustration allows the reader to both identify the prioritized focus and identify with the immediate experience or experiencer it presents. In Bal’s terms, these images fully embrace character focalization
(CF) and aim to amplify identification with the protagonist-as-focalizor.
The illustrator’s staging of this identification process relies on highly theatrical visual conventions stylistically linked to the other products produced at the lithographic institute. The attention to details in costume—as well as the individual posturing, theatrical stage blocking, and perspectival flatness of the backdrops—bear strong resemblance to the picture sheets that Winckelmann & Sons regularly released for younger audiences. In fact, the visual spectrum was fluid between their products—as
Sebastian Schmideler notes, the publisher’s first children’s books were essentially compilations of stock images “loosely bound” into picture books (Verlag Winckelmann
& Söhne” 4).
In both instances, the illustrator clearly and simply presents pivotal moments as a means for pushing the narrative forward. Like Hosemann’s picture sheets, these 212 presentations of arrested action lean heavily on simple, dramatic positioning to establish
the stakes and roles for everyone in the scene. They deploy arresting moments as a
spectacular means to envelop the reader-viewer in the immediacy and excitement of the
exegetic adventurer’s experience.
In a similar fashion, the privileged status Dielitz accords to the “exciting events”
at the heart of his stories preselect the individual scenes that Hosemann chooses to
illustrate. Most of the time, Hosemann chooses to visualize the “moment of truth,” the
point at which the circumstances are most dire, the outcome hangs in the balance, and the
protagonist must prove himself equal to the challenge. Substantially fewer illustrations
present static models not overtly connected to the narrative moment of truth but depicting
characters as archetypes at the story’s onset or conclusion.
Moments of Choice, Moments of Truth
Like the exciting events that anchor each story, Hosemann’s eight hand-colored
illustrations are exceptionally prominent in each of the Images of Land and Sea, but they
are also relatively rare: even given the concise nature of the individual stories, the
average volume is 316 pages long, yielding an image-to-page ratio of about one
illustration per forty pages of text. The relative infrequency of the lithographs intensifies
expectations of their quality and highlights the importance of the illustrator’s choice in
determining not only what and how, but when to visualize the text—and when not to.
213 The precise placement or timing of a given visual intervention within the narrative
chronology—in other words, the illustrator’s moment of choice—is central to
understanding how the image and text intersect. In his studies of illustration in English literature, Edward Hodnett highlights the moment of choice as the most important concern when considering illustrations of novel-length works. For Hodnett the central question facing the illustrator is always, “which of all the possible moments of choice are the ones that are most significant in terms of contributing to the reader’s understanding of the text and of reinforcing the emotional effects sought by the author?” (8). In the Land-
und Seebilder, Hosemann’s “moment of choice” is most often the climactic “moment of
truth.”
In the majority of his illustrations for Dielitz’s anthologies (80.67% of the 136
images accompanying the 17 volumes I viewed), Hosemann’s composition hinges neither
on individual figures nor the setting, but on the narrative moment of proving itself. The
instant portrayed is always the one instant immediately before all is decided: the hunter
takes aim to strike, the captive struggles to escape before the guard returns, and the puma
prepares to pounce. Given the narrative guidelines, this is perhaps not so surprising. After
all, Dielitz’s adaptation principles had already refocused the narratives into vehicles for
“viewing” virtue in action, such that even when the text is not illustrated, the “moment of
truth” is structurally focalized. The textual stage has been set at this point, the figures
visually arranged in such a way that the focus is squarely on the question: how can he
possibly prevail?
214 In tandem with the text, the illustration cues the reader/viewer to possible answers by accentuating the type and magnitude of peril that must be overcome, setting up the inevitable follow-up during the falling action in which the narrator or protagonist waxes pedagogic on the remarkable courage, steadfastness, or decisiveness displayed by the heroic adventurer. Rather than being positively encoded in the protagonist directly, this is most frequently established by magnifying the most lethal components of the threat he must overcome. In other instances, the reactions and expressions of diegetic “extras”— most often seen screaming, fleeing, or otherwise openly advertising their fear—act as visual counterpoints to the (visibly) less flappable hero.
In the former case this is often extremely direct, as in Fig. 85, where the gray bear’s most intimidating characteristics—its hulking mass, claws, and glowing, red- colored eyes—loom above the prominent but prone foreground figure. The hunter— identifiably young in age and European in dress—is in position, his weapon primed and aimed, but he has yet to pull the trigger. The primary compositional lines visually unite the two figures through this pending action—the reader’s eye can trace a nearly direct diagonal line from the hunter’s back foot, through his body, down the barrel of the gun and directly into the beast’s eyes. Taken together, all of these details serve to identify both the focalizer (CF) and objects of focalization and establish the precise shape and stakes of their conflict clearly and unambiguously.
They also identify the moment of truth as a moment of potential identification with the focalizor. The scene’s third-person perspective is not identical to that of the hunter, but is extremely close to it—we see everything that he sees, but from a safe, 215 disembodied distance. The reader, who inches closer to the diegetic adventurer’s experiential horizon with every step the latter takes, is positioned as a voyeuristic shadow, a disembodied companion stalking the hunter as he stalks his own quarry.
This relationship further extends what Roland Barthes describes as a visual-verbal process of relaying, where both text and image attempt to grasp the same object: “here language… and image are in a complementary relation; the words are then fragments of a more general syntagm, as are the images, and the message’s unity occurs on a higher level; that of the story” (Nodelman 30). In this case, the unity is found in the experience of the story: it is the intense immediacy of the moment of truth, the vivifying, vicarious experience of something eminently relatable in form but unattainable in content. To this end, the various focusing lenses—textual adaptation, lithographic visualization, and the reader’s engagement with both—layered here act as mutually reinforcing relayers. Taken together, they amplify the congruency between the diegetic angst felt by the textual adventurer at the moment of truth, the visual presentation of its tension, and the reader’s investment in sharing that experience to such a point that all three interpretations of the
“source material” converge around that instant.
Of course, these layers don’t always align quite so neatly. In the previous example, the reader is offered a direct, diegetic surrogate to identify with (and through), but this is not always the case. For example, when the focal figures in an illustration are not the narrative’s (European) protagonists, as in Fig. 86, they are often depicted head-on as objects for study. Here the reader’s perspective is intended to be closest to the
European spectators on the far bank—out of harm’s way, but close enough to watch. 216 While the reader can admire their courage, the traditional hunting methods of South
American natives are a spectacle to be observed, not emulated. This proving is a demonstration of skill in a detached moment of truth less readily available to vicarious identification from the reader.
Posing Paragons, Essentialized Virtues
This previous example centers around a moment of truth, but the identificatory potential it offers is more aspirational than accessible—a model one can aspire to, but not an actual stand-in for the reader-viewer. While this dynamic occasionally appears in an illustrated moment of truth, it is more common in less tense scenes. In such cases—
19.34% of the total 136 images—the figures are not locked in deadly conflict with clear and present danger, but are instead posed passively as static models. Instead of depicting virtue in action, the focus is on virtuous attributes. To this end, Hosemann uses costume detail, icon-like props and attributes, and—above all—body posture to suggest rather than demonstrate moral character. Here we see a silent parade of statuesque leaders— chiefs, shahs, kings, and soldiers—presenting their best qualities to the reader-viewer’s gaze for appreciation and wonder. They are most frequently deployed alongside initial encounters—to establish the “quality” of the figure—or in the aftermath of a triumphant
217 victory. Rather than the engaging experience of unconditional presence, they advertise an
image of a potential future self, one who has proven himself a man.150
Framing Repeat Exposures
The moments and models discussed above connect readers to individual stories, but other illustrations shape their expectations of the volume as a whole. Six of the eight total illustrations for each volume are embedded within the textual narrative they accompany, but the “framing” visual presentations for each volume, the title images, frontispieces, and book covers each play a heightened role in pre-focusing the reader’s initial expectations before the first story ever begins.
The title images are all small-format vignettes sandwiched between the volume title (above) and the author and publisher information (below). Unlike the other illustrations, these vignettes often have—at best—highly tangential connections to any of the stories and most frequently serve a decorative purpose. When clear connections are identifiable, they present the narrative world through easily recognizable adventure archetypes: a big game hunt, an ambush by hostile animals or natives, a shipwreck, or an adventurer making camp.
On the other hand, the frontispieces have a slightly closer connection. They are, without exception, always illustrations conceived for a particular story within the volume.
While there is a slight tendency among the adventure collections to favor “proving
150 Often by reference to the past: these visual emphases are much more frequent in Dielitz’s few historical anthologies than in his adventure collections, perhaps acknowledging the ossification of biographical data points into mythological character traits. 218 moments” over static models—66.67% for the former compared to 33.33% for the
latter151—there does not appear to be any discernible selection criteria for placing
particular illustrations in this position. However, though they illustrate an identifiable
scene or figure from the story, one key difference is that they are not integrated into the
narrative flow. Consequently they often function more as appetizers, as advertisements
for the types of exciting events and figures awaiting the reader.
The overall selection, form, and design of this visual “front matter”—as well as
the other illustrations—remains virtually unchanged over a succession of—in some cases
ten or more—print editions. The only major change is one of process, from hand-colored
lithography to chromolithography—the compositions themselves retain the form and
focus of Hosemann’s originals from the 1840s to the 1890s, even if they drop off in
quality.
By contrast, the cover designs changed dramatically over the same period. As the
stories and illustrations had received largely superficial updates, the cover became an
important means of extending sales past the perceived point of market saturation: in the
preface to the seventh edition of Reisebilder (1881), Winckelmann & Sons acknowledge
the importance of attractive, external appearance in “winning new friends” for the
volume (Dielitz, Reisebilder (1881) “Preface”). Initial print runs of the early volumes
were monochromatic and nondescript: minimally adorned with ornamental frames and
descriptive titles, as was then common for many “respectable” works of adult literature.
151 Using the aforementioned statistics, ten of the fifteen adventure volumes containing frontispieces belonged to the former category. Of the three historical volumes consulted, the tendency was inverted, with two of the three presenting static models. 219 The exciting, exotic, and often violent cover illustrations of late-century editions— particularly towards the end of the Dielitz print runs in the 1880s and 1890s—clearly sought more direct competition with early colonial visual trends. In most cases, this simply meant that a scene from one adventure narrative served as an advertisement for the whole collection.
In other instances, for example in Fig. 87, the cover accentuates the geographic and ethnographic variety, offering tantalizing glimpses of exciting encounters with the exotic. Here a variety of compositional demarcations accentuates the core tensions at play, four quadrants splitting hunters from hunted, natives from Europeans. The overall composition—named by the banner title and geographically depicted by the globe centerpiece—presents a dangerous New World, where the predator might become prey at any moment.
This small detail makes the cover illustration unique: it is the only visualization across the entire series to relate the immediate experience of travel to an abstract, cartographical presentation of a global region (hemisphere). Here we see one of the casualties of the extreme focus on adventure impressions: geographical views that extend beyond the immediate gaze of the viewer. Hosemann’s illustrations are generally so foregrounded in the actor-adventurers and their dangerous entanglements that there is quite literally no space to explore beyond them on the page. Aside from the immediate contours of the given arena or proving ground, all other topographical features are loosely sketched onto a flattened background stylistically akin to a stage backdrop. Unlike
Romantic illustrations, where human agents are often spatially and thematically 220 overwhelmed by the scale and sublimity of the travel narrative’s wild setting, all natural landscapes are reduced to canvas backdrops—shorthand, peripheral means of evoking a concrete space for the adventure to occur without getting in its way. There is little time for idle reflection—the world that Dielitz and Hosemann present is a space defined and refined by decisive action, not contemplation.
CONCLUSION
While his works certainly sold well, it is unclear if Dielitz’s adventure gambit was a pedagogical success. It is, at its core, a pragmatic compromise between pedagogical and commercial principles made to compete for the leisure-time attentions of pre-teen
German readers. It was also one that Dielitz did not take unwittingly. By exploring his work’s justification, as well as the mechanisms through which it focuses and presents the world for its readers, I have aimed to better understand why Dielitz decided that the attempt was worthwhile in the first place.
With his Land- und Seebilder, Theodor Dielitz acknowledges the dangers of an unregulated, popular travel literature for young readers, as well as the logistical impossibility of circumscribing the glut of global travel information with a school curriculum. This leads him to make a calculated compromise: to embrace exciting events culled from authentic travel narratives as the primary means of achieving his pedagogical goals beyond the classroom.
221 A series of adaptations narrows the focus of this leisure-time mode of experience
and distinguishes it from the school curriculum. In the Land- und Seebilder, each
successive lens or filter applied to the raw material of the adventure narrative is anchored
by and visualized through the exciting event and, more specifically, the moment of truth.
These moments not only visualize each individual story through its focal point but also
assert such climactic challenges as the core experience of travel.152 For their part,
Theodor Hosemann’s illustrations do a faithful job of focusing a refracted set of texts onto the author’s primary pedagogical aims. However, they do not expand beyond the scope dictated by these aims and further defined by Dielitz’s narrative adaptations; they further pre-filter the reader’s focus on one mode of experiencing the world.153 This focus necessarily precludes many peripheral contexts, especially contemporary sociopolitical themes driving some of the source texts, perhaps encouraging readers to adopt the model of “negative armchair tourism” critics past and present have bemoaned.154
Such absences mark the final piece to Dielitz’s compromise: by positioning his works as non-necessary supplements to curricular presentations of world geography, he can reasonably justify their narrow focus. The Land- und Seebilder are by no means comprehensive in scope but point toward that horizon. By utilizing repeated, ephemeral impressions to generate interest in other regions of the world, they aim to guide readers toward future, deeper engagements with those regions as students and after their formal
152 For an extensive exploration of the panoramic elements of Dielitz’s anthologies, see Seidler, “Theodor Dielitz’ Land- und Seebilder,” 71-80. 153 Schmideler notes that text and illustration are in a complementary relation here: the text “tickles” the reader’s desire for the exotic (providing mental visualizations), while the illustrations (material visualizations) serve to satisfy his desire to “see” (Schaulust) (“Verlag Winckelmann & Söhne” 11). 154 For example, see Seidler, “Theodor Dielitz’ Land- und Seebilder,” 71. 222 education is over as adult readers. In other words, the ends justify the scenes: by presenting what is necessary to survive the ordeal today, they preserve their virtue as valuable supplements for tomorrow.
223 CHAPTER 7
Conclusion
This chapter summarizes the individual contributions from each of the previous
case studies and highlights the aesthetic of immediacy that appears to drive their
multimodal appearances during the middle decades of the nineteenth century. It offers
concluding remarks on the dissertation’s overall contributions to the fields of German
children’s literature, book history, and visual cultural studies. Finally, it acknowledges
some of its limitations and outlines several promising directions for further research.
OVERLAPPING ADVENTURES
The previous four case studies have highlighted representative works of intentional youth travel adventure stories published in German-speaking Europe between
1780 and 1860. Chapter 3 explored illustrated editions of Joachim Heinrich Campe’s
Robinson der Jüngere (1779/80), with a particular eye to how their changing visual appearance contrasts with the text’s static pedagogical premise. Chapter 4 highlighted
German editions of another robinsonade, Frederick Marryat’s Masterman Ready (1841).
Extremely popular in its time, this British import is all but unknown to contemporary readers. Chapter 5 presented German adaptations of James Fenimore Cooper’s
Leatherstocking Tales (1845), one of the most popular youth anthologies in German literary history. It contrasted the bourgeois modesty of adult adaptations of the text with
224 the more garish and sensational elements in shortened youth versions. Finally, Chapter 6
explored Theodor Dielitz’s Images of Land and Sea (1841-1861), a collection of heavily
adapted travel anthologies that repackaged the “greatest hits” of contemporary travel
adventure into uniform, age-appropriate chunks. The following section explores the
common theme of experiential immediacy at the heart of each of their text-image
analyses.
Towards an Aesthetic of Immediacy
Given the mid-ground perspective taken by this dissertation, it would be
irresponsible to make sweeping conclusions about general tendencies in image-text
relations within the broad genres of youth adventure literature published in German-
speaking Europe during this time period. It would be similarly irresponsible to claim that
the conclusions drawn in each of the four case studies above present comprehensive
perspectives on the visual histories of individual works. Instead of claiming to speak for
either, this section examines the red threads that can be traced through each case study.
As mentioned in Chapter 2, Roland Barthes emphasizes the level of the story as
the semiotic glue that unites verbal and visual modes of representation in multimodal
works. In each of these case studies, the narrative content, visual images, and prefatory
matter converge around a specific story—the creation of a good adventure. Taken together, each of these components contributes to the implied, juvenile reader’s experience of adventure. In most cases—though, in the case of Campe, perhaps not
225 always—the work’s overall strategy to containing adventure is consistently reflected in
each of these areas.
One of the most noticeable shifts in the way that illustrations function within
these works is in the progressive narrowing of their emphasis from the work’s
pedagogical frame to its narrative content. Heinke Wunderlich notes that, for many
Enlightenment works, illustration is most frequently used to accentuate the scene or
scenario of learning. Though some illustrations do realize the text’s content, they
generally do not reflect the reader’s experience of that content (112).155 In other words, the emphasis remains on the frame of that experience—on a particular mode of reading and learning as the ideal method for engaging with the text. External focalization (EF) is used extensively to this effect. In each of these cases, an increase in the proximity between illustrations and the reader’s experience of the narrative tends to diminish the prominence of the frame narrative in order to accentuate adventure content.
This progression is most clearly present across the editions of Joachim Heinrich
Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere explored in Chapter 3. The chronological progression of authorized visualizations for this work mirrors the author’s own pedagogical growth model, moving from a group, oral reading scene to an independent, individual mode of silent exploration. Concurrently, a secondary market of unlicensed adaptations acknowledges the adventurous stages of the narrative much more openly, drawing on the visual reservoir of European travel and exploration iconography to align the work. In
155 “Das Bild unterstützt den Text, vergegenwärtigt das Gelesene, reflektiert nicht den Lesenden” (112). 226 both instances, the tendency is to abandon the pedagogical scene of communal learning in favor of joining Robinson on the island through vicarious, visual experience.
Though most evident in Chapter 3, this tendency is also present in each of the other case studies. For example, the early reception of Marryat’s Masterman Ready in
Germany is strikingly similar to that of Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere—one high- quality, “official” version of the work maintained its overall presentation over dozens of editions, and competed against a broad “secondary” market of various adaptations and iterations that reflected the gamut of publishing practices across German-speaking
Europe. However, unlike Robinson der Jüngere, whose textual form was retained while its visual accompaniment shifted dramatically, the textual and visual reception of
Masterman Ready appear inseparable for over 40 years until the introduction of late- century chromolithographic editions. Marryat’s carefully calibrated presentation of realistic sea-faring experience, virtuous (middle-class) industry, and strategic encounters with exotic threats appealed to adult gatekeepers and child readers alike. Marryat pays homage to Enlightenment dialogic structures, but he doesn’t let them interrupt the narrative; he allows his readers to experience fearful moments (through CFs), but always keeps them at an appropriate distance (the EF of illustration at the level of the work itself). Above all, his illustrations work in tandem with the text to emphasize the daily rhythms of work and leisure—establishing a stable pace that allows the interruptions of exciting moments to be experienced that much more vividly.
Marryat and Campe’s robinsonades generally understate existential threats to their protagonists within the narrative, and instead rely on visuals to accentuate the danger. 227 The opposite is true for Cooper adaptations. As explored in Chapter 5, both Franz
Hoffmann and Adam Stein’s illustrated youth editions of the Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen lean on familiar visual and generic forms to blunt the force of their violent content and recast a literary novelty in an acceptable manner for its intended audience. This is in direct contrast to adult versions, which use the textual narrative to highlight danger but rely on visualizations to assuage reader anxieties. These latter examples behave as decorous decoration(s)—while the youth images, especially those accompanying the first
Hoffmann edition, are brimming with impetuous immediacy. In this instance, the former version falls back on text-extrinsic standards of taste, while the youth illustration dives headlong into the experience of the North American trail.
Chapter 6 is something of an outlier in that it explores the breadth of a series of different texts, rather than focusing on iterations of the same works over time. In this instance, the cumulative emphasis of text selection, adaptation, and visualization falls squarely on the most exciting moments possible. In the Images of Land and Sea, each successive lens or filter applied to the raw material of the narrative original is anchored by and visualized through the exciting event and, more specifically, the moment of truth.
These moments not only visualize each individual story through its focal point but also assert such climactic challenges as the core experience of travel. For their part, Theodor
Hosemann’s illustrations do a faithful job of focusing a refracted set of texts onto the author’s primary pedagogical aims. However, they do not expand beyond the scope dictated by these aims and further defined by Dielitz’s narrative adaptations; they further pre-filter the reader’s focus on one mode of experiencing the world. By utilizing 228 repeated, ephemeral impressions to generate interest in other regions of the world, they
aim to guide readers toward future, deeper engagements with those regions as students,
and after their formal education is over as adult readers. In other words, the ends justify
the scenes: by presenting what is necessary to survive the ordeal today, they preserve
their virtue as valuable supplements for tomorrow.
Each of these trends converge around each narrative’s most pregnant moments to
amplify the reader’s engagement with the immediate experience of adventure. In other
words, they become increasingly subordinated to an aesthetic of immediacy. This strategy
relies on amplifying the reader’s affective anxieties about the narrative climax by
accentuating the moment of maximum tension—Robinson discovering the footprint or fighting the native cannibal in order to save Friday, William rescuing Ready from immediate death outside the stockade, Natty Bumppo’s courage tested by tomahawks, or any number of Dielitz’s hunters taking aim at their ferocious quarries. In each case, the reader/viewer is encouraged to embody that moment of truth with the protagonist, to vicariously experience the fear and hope of that moment through visual and verbal modes.
Particularly in Dielitz and Cooper, the allure of this reading experience was not blunted by the continued presence of heavy-handed moral frame narratives, which
provided just enough explicit guidance to realize prefatory goals and assure concerned
parents. However, later generations of adventure novels doubled down on the sensational
while decreasing their moral-pedagogical fiber, a trend which drew hefty criticisms from
late-century literary critics. The history of Wilhelmine Era adventure emphasizes the 229 wholesale embrace of narratives of colonial dominance. In particular, colonial projects in
Africa and the goal of realizing a German nation-state led to an increase in military-
historical and imperial youth stories (Willkending 224). Aiga Klotz describes such works
as “unreservedly sensual and tactile” (rückhaltlos sinnfällig und handgreiflich) narratives in which nothing is “sublimated or abstracted” (vergeistigt oder hinwegabstrahiert) and
“everything plays out in concrete, immediate presence (alles spielt sich in anschaulicher
Gegenwärtigkeit ab) (115). Though they share some similarities, the key difference
between the works presented in this study and those that would follow them is that each
of these still grounded their works in well-defined (if not always voluminously presented)
pedagogical aims.
Again, caution must be taken when drawing broad conclusions from these four
case studies. What I hope to have shown is that, in each case, the illustrated adventure
edition presents a series of exciting narrative and visual elements that are unified in their
goal to guide the reader safely to the appropriate, bourgeois interpretation of the events
portrayed. By more fully embracing an aesthetic of immediacy, illustrated editions aim to
amplify and steer the implied reader’s affective attachments toward imitating virtuous
behavior, however that is defined by the author.
The Spoils of Adventure: Interdisciplinary Contributions
This dissertation contributes to the fields of German children’s literature, book
history, and visual cultural studies. At its core, it provides extensive evidence for the
230 importance of illustration as a significant component for literary and book history, challenges the disciplinary assumptions of national-epochal literary and book history, and presents an interdisciplinary model for productive engagement with text-image dynamics in historical genres. This section explores its particular relevance and contributions to specific disciplines.
In the field of German children’s literature, it challenges the epochal assertions of traditional literary histories and provides compelling evidence for the dynamic use and incorporation of illustration in less overtly visual genres like youth adventure. In particular, focusing on a broad definition of Abenteuerliteratur and a broad slice of
German publishing history allowed me to bridge many of the categorical divides imposed by literary history. Rooting my definition of youth adventure literature in the historically challenging element of Abenteuer also allowed me to recognize affinities—and differences—between texts that are not normally considered together. For example, works like Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere are most frequently analyzed alongside other pedagogical robinsonades—or as successful realizations of a particular, enlightened project of Bildung—not as counterpoints to Native American novels or severely truncated travel adaptations. Yet for all of their structural and thematic differences, these works share much more than juvenile addressees. Using a range of strategies, they each attempt to harness adventure to project their pedagogical aims to potential youth readers. Beyond this, these works were all in direct competition with one another for those same readers: though initially published at different times, each of them co-existed on literary markets from the mid-1840s to the 1860s and beyond. Exploring across narrowly defined genre 231 boundaries during this period further challenges the hegemony of long-standing, literary- historical categories and opens up productive new space for considering the specific types of texts—and their specific forms—that co-existed on historical youth-literary markets.
As a series of genre studies built upon historical editions, this dissertation will also be of interest to print and illustration historians. In particular, connections across the range of visual products from publishing houses like Schmidt & Spring or Oehnmigke, alongside the high and low art occupations of prominent artists, point to the interdependency of print forms during this time. The project—particularly in Chapters 4,
5, and 6—also nods towards the transnational tenor of the print industry during this time.
Finally, the dissertation has farther-reaching implications for visual cultural studies—particularly as that field approaches multimodal objects like illustrated books that have traditionally been considered the province of literary or art-historical criticism.
As W. J. T. Mitchell notes, a general theory of image-text relations is impossible. The primary goal of this dissertation has not to arrive at a categorical answer to the question: how do words and images interact in the nineteenth-century German youth adventure book? Rather, the case studies presented in this dissertation apply existing theoretical methodologies on new objects to illustrate one productive means of analyzing and comparing the visual and verbal components of one literary genre. Each chapter introduces a new focus for analysis: from the longitudinal effects of re-visualizing an established literary classic like Campe’s Robinson der Jüngere, to the immediate incorporation of canonical, in-text images in Marryat’s Masterman Ready, to direct comparisons between adult and youth adaptations of the same source material produced 232 by the same publisher in the case of Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen, and the rigid
formal-stylistic mold that Theodor Dielitz imposed upon in his Land- und Seebilder. The
various tacks taken here illustrate the gamut of possibilities that such a method offers.
The next section sketches the project’s development, outlines some of its major limitations, and explores promising avenues—some direct continuations of the dissertation research itself, others proceeding from insights gleaned along the way—for future research.
FURTHER ADVENTURES
In many respects, the process of researching and writing this dissertation bears
strong resemblance to the challenge of adventure. As was briefly discussed in the
Introduction, this project changed dramatically from its initial inception. At the
prospectus stage, I had envisioned the project as an historical overview of the
relationships between the inherently visual genres of adventure literature and their
material realizations in representative, illustrated exempla. Following my first trip to the
Berlin State Library, I quickly realized that such a project—if undertaken—would be the
work of several lifetimes.
In Chapter 2, I outlined the selection criteria for the primary texts featured in this
dissertation, and made a positive case for choosing Campe, Marryat, Cooper, and Dielitz
as my primary authors. In the next section, I outline some of the limitations that this
233 selection provided, revisit the challenges of archival research, and offer suggestions for productive avenues for future study.
Project Limitations
As stated in Chapter 2, the earliest and most prominent challenges to the successful completion of this dissertation were logistical. Consequently, one of the most prominent limitations is also logistical: while I could locate most of the illustrated editions consulted via international library catalogues (OCLC WorldCat or the Berlin
State Library’s StabiKat, for example), acquiring them was not always possible. This held true in the US as well as in Germany, where many particular editions were hidden away in remote regional museums. In other instances—and especially in the case of cheaper, less “collectible” editions—any existing exempla were lost or destroyed, if listed at all. For practical purposes, I was compelled to restrict my research to the local resources available to me through the University of Texas Libraries (including volumes viewed at the Harry Ransom Center or obtained through Inter-Library Loan), and the two major German archives—the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach and the Children’s and Young People’s Book Collection at the Berlin State Library—where I conducted the bulk of my research. Thus while the conclusions presented here are the direct result of my extensive knowledge of the primary texts and editions of early-nineteenth-century
German youth adventure literature, I cannot claim that they are comprehensive in scope.
In a similar vein, each case study would benefit from more contemporary (that is, nineteenth-century) perspectives. In particular, additional documentation from artists,
234 authors, and publishers pertaining to the interim stages of the publishing process could provide further insights as to how and why specific editions appeared as they did.
Specifically, I would be very interested in learning more about the practical conversations between author, illustrator, and publisher as to the visual realization of each edition.
Limitations regarding what texts to focus on were, as mentioned in Chapter 2, the result of careful deliberation. To recap, I only considered works that were clearly identifiable as illustrated travel adventure stories set in concrete, feasible, real-world locations. This had two major consequences. First, it meant that the selection was not predetermined by the author’s national significance. To this end, I intentionally avoided selecting a group of texts that would lend themselves to this sort of reading. As stated in
Chapter 2, my purpose here was not to locate these books along a pre-existing (proto-)
German national-literary narrative, but to better grasp the internal dynamics of a popular genre in its own time. This consideration specifically led me to exclude popular works by the likes of German authors Friedrich Gerstäcker, Balduin Möllhausen, and Charles
Sealsfield, each of whose Western adventure narratives are too neatly clustered around the well-worn path from James Fenimore Cooper to Karl May.
Second, it led me to largely ignore those works that were not consistently illustrated. A historian of actual KJL might reasonably pursue the following null hypothesis: many—if not most—readers of these texts did not actually read illustrated editions. As was discussed at the beginning of Chapter 2 however, the best evidence one might be able to provide for the popularity of one edition over another might be historical exhibition sales records. However, these are apt to be more indicative of adult purchasing 235 preferences than any actual reading trends. In either case, the focus for this study was not on comparing illustrated to non-illustrated editions, but to see how text and image intersected in various ways across illustrated editions.
One of the benefits of choosing a “mid-ground perspective” for this project was that I was able to identify opportunities for future research in a number of exciting new directions. The following section sketches some of the most promising of these.
Areas for Further Study
One of the most pressing areas for further studies emerged directly from the most frustrating component of my experience at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv—the sheer logistical challenge of navigating a massive, uncatalogued corpus. While my dissertation would have been impossible without the Heinz-Neumann Collection of Adventure
Literature, future scholars of German adventure literature would greatly benefit from a comprehensive, bibliographic description of the nearly 6,000 volumes (including letters and objects) in its collection. This, and the more ambitious project of digitizing the archives holdings, would create a substantial foundation for future research.
A digitized corpus would open up exciting new research possibilities using online tools such as Google Image or TinEye’s reverse image search engine. For example, future projects could trace the history of visual allusions, image borrowings or thefts, and transnational connections across thousands of works. Recent works by Kit Belgum and
David Ciarlo offer a sense of the potential of this kind of research.
236 On a more immediate level, the case studies presented here could be expanded in new directions to more directly address the scholarship on German adventure-literary sub-genres. I see three clusters of immediate interest. First, an expansion of the Campe and Marryat chapters to include Johann David Wyß’s Der Schweizerische Robinson could easily develop into a narrower genre study of the uses of illustration in youth robinsonades across Europe. Second, I would be interested in conducting a deeper exploration of Vielschreiber like Theodor Dielitz, Gustav Nieritz, and Franz Hoffmann— perhaps organized around publishers like Oehmigke or Schmidt & Spring—that draws on their literary source material to better understand their translation and adaptation processes and philosophies. Third, I would like to extend the visual analysis of James
Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales into their twentieth-century film guises. In particular, I would like to trace visual continuities between illustrated editions of
Cooper’s works and their realization by the East German film company, DEFA.
Beyond this, I would also like to explore some of the other, lesser-known adventure authors I encountered along the way, whose works did not make it into this dissertation. Specifically, the cluster of North American novels by Friedrich Gerstäcker,
Charles Sealsfield, Mayne Reid, and Gabriel Ferry could prove a fruitful starting point— particularly when brought into dialogue with North American collections such as the
Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.
237 Final Thoughts
In Realizations, drama historian Martin Meisel observed that the illustrated book, painting, and theater were mutually dependent art forms that, in the nineteenth century, grew closer together and became the site of a “complex interplay of narrative and picture” (Golden 5). Though this dissertation primarily aims to make a modest but concrete contribution at the juncture of German children’s literature, visual cultural history, and critical bibliography, it has broader implications for the way in which future studies of this type are conducted. Looking at the children’s book as a multimodal product opens an interesting and productive line of inquiry that touches on many of the major cultural values in flux in nineteenth-century Germany. The illustrated book may not have been a “novel” medium to its nineteenth century readerships, but considering it in this way offers a unique perspective that could equally impact the structure of future discourses on illustrated children’s books, nineteenth-century print and visual culture, and the history of the word-image dialectic.
238 Appendix – Images
Figure 1. Robinson der Jüngere frontispiece, Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, in Robinson der Jüngere, zur angenehmen und nützlichen Unterhaltung für Kinder. (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981), p. 3.
239
Figure 2. Robinson der Jüngere frontispiece, after Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki (illustrator unnamed), in Robinson der Jüngere, zur angenehmen und nützlichen Unterhaltung für Kinder. (Frankfurt & Leipzig: 1781).
240
Figure 3. Robinson der Jüngere frontispiece, illustrator unnamed, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder zur allgemeinen Schulencyclopädie gehörig. 4th authorized ed. (Braunschweig: 1789). 241
Figure 4. Robinson der Jüngere frontispiece, Franz Catel, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder zur allgemeinen Schulencyclopädie gehörig. 9th authorized ed. (Braunschweig: 1807).
242
Figure 5. Robinson der Jüngere frontispiece, Franz Catel, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. 12th authorized ed. (Braunschweig: 1816). 243
Figure 6. Robinson saved from the shipwreck, Franz Catel, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder zur allgemeinen Schulencyclopädie gehörig. 12th authorized ed. (Braunschweig: 1816), p. 55.
244
Figure 7. Robinson in the cave, Franz Catel, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder zur allgemeinen Schulencyclopädie gehörig. 12th authorized ed. (Braunschweig: 1816), p. 247.
245
Figure 8. Robinson discovers the footprints, Franz Catel, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder zur allgemeinen Schulencyclopädie gehörig. 12th authorized ed. (Braunschweig: 1816), p. 287. 246
Figure 9. Robinson saves Friday from the cannibals, Franz Catel, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder zur allgemeinen Schulencyclopädie gehörig. 12th authorized ed. (Braunschweig: 1816), p. 307. 247
Figure 10. Robinson rescues Thursday and the Spaniard, Franz Catel, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder zur allgemeinen Schulencyclopädie gehörig. 12th authorized ed. (Braunschweig: 1816), p. 489. 248
Figure 11. Robinson boards the ship for home, Franz Catel, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder zur allgemeinen Schulencyclopädie gehörig. 12th authorized ed. (Braunschweig: 1816), p. 551.
249
Figure 12. Robinson leaves home (frontispiece), illustrator unknown, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. (Reutlingen: 1827).
250
Figure 13. Robinson thanks God for surviving the shipwreck, illustrator unknown, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. (Reutlingen: 1827), p. 37. 251
Figure 14. Robinson improves his cave dwelling, illustrator unknown, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. (Reutlingen: 1827), p. 54.
252
Figure 15. Robinson carries a turtle back to the cave, illustrator unknown, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. (Reutlingen: 1827), p. 87.
253
Figure 16. Robinson lassos a llama, illustrator unknown, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. (Reutlingen: 1827), p. 100.
254
Figure 17. Robinson escapes the volcanic eruption, illustrator unknown, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. (Reutlingen: 1827), p. 113. 255
Figure 18. Robinson plants his flag (shirt), illustrator unknown, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. (Reutlingen: 1827), p. 134.
256
Figure 19. Robinson recovers in the cave, illustrator unknown, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. (Reutlingen: 1827), p. 144. 257
Figure 20. Robinson slays Friday’s pursuers, illustrator unknown, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. (Reutlingen: 1827), p. 173. 258
Figure 21. Robinson fires the musket, illustrator unknown, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. (Reutlingen: 1827), p. 241. 259
Figure 22. Robinson and Friday board the ship home, illustrator unknown, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. (Reutlingen: 1827), p. 308.
260
Figure 23. Robinson embraces his father, illustrator unknown, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. (Reutlingen: 1827), p. 309.
261
Figure 24. Robinson der Jüngere Frontispiece, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 1. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 4. 262
Figure 25. Father tells the story of Robinson the Younger, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 1. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 13.
263
Figure 26. Robinson unconscious after the storm, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 1. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 27. 264
Figure 27. Robinson thanks God for surviving the shipwreck, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 1. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 36. 265
Figure 28. Father describes the llamas, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 1. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 50.
266
Figure 29. Robinson knocked unconscious during the storm, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 1. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 56. 267
Figure 30. Robinson lassos a llama, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 1. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 73. 268
Figure 31. Robinson and his new pets, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 1. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 75.
269
Figure 32. Robinson and his llamas flee from the eruption, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 1. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 82.
270
Figure 33. Robinson recovers in the cave, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 2. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 5.
271
Figure 34. Robinson discovers footprints amongst the bones, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 2. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 19.
272
Figure 35. Robinson slays Friday’s pursuers, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 2. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 29.
273
Figure 36. The cannibals dance around the fire, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 2. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 36.
274
Figure 37. Robinson teaches Friday to eat like a European, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 2. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 77.
275
Figure 38. Robinson fires the musket, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 2. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 79.
276
Figure 39. “Drawing” of Robinson’s primitive plow, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 2. (Braunschweig: 1848), p. 95.
277
Figure 40. Robinson prepares to depart for home, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 2. (Braunschweig: 1848), p.131.
278
Figure 41. Robinson embraces his father, Ludwig Richter, in Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder, Teil 2. (Braunschweig: 1848), p.136. 279
Figure 42. Captain Marryat, R. N., designed by H. Behnes and engraved by H. Cook, in The Pirate, and The Three Cutters. Illustrated with Twenty Splendid Engravings from Drawings by Clarkson Stanfield, Esq. R. A. (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1836), frontispiece. 280
Figure 43. Building the House, unattributed, in Masterman Ready; or, the Wreck of the Pacific. Written for Young People. Vol. I. (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1841), p. 282.
281
Figure 44. Tommy – Where’s the Thimble, unattributed, in Masterman Ready; or, the Wreck of the Pacific. Written for Young People. Vol. II. (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1842), p. 48.
282
Figure 45. Landing, unattributed, in Masterman Ready; or, the Wreck of the Pacific. Written for Young People. Vol. III. (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1842), p. 148.
283
Figure 46. Frontispiece, unattributed, in Masterman Ready; or, the Wreck of the Pacific. Written for Young People. Vol. I. (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1841). 284
Figure 47. Making the Well, unattributed, in Masterman Ready; or, the Wreck of the Pacific. Written for Young People. Vol. I. (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1841), p. 231.
285
Figure 48. Repairing the Boat, unattributed, in Masterman Ready; or, the Wreck of the Pacific. Written for Young People. Vol. I. (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1841), p. 204.
286
Figure 49. Stormy Petrels, unattributed, in Masterman Ready; or, the Wreck of the Pacific. Written for Young People. Vol. I. (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1841), p. 5.
287
Figure 50. Hyena Lifting Ready, unattributed, in Masterman Ready; or, the Wreck of the Pacific. Written for Young People. Vol. II. (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1842), p. 130. 288
Figure 51. Ready, Savage, and William, in Masterman Ready; or, the Wreck of the Pacific. Written for Young People. Vol. III. (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1842), p. 176.
289
Figure 52. Sigismund Rüstig, designed by Dickes, engraved by R. Branston, in Sigismund Rüstig. Der Bremer Steuermann. Ein neuer Robinson, nach Kapitän Marryat frei für die deutsche Jugend bearbeitet. Mit 94 Bildern in 1 Bande. 19th ed. (Leipzig, Druck und Verlag von B. G. Teubner, 1887), frontispiece. 290
Figure 53. Vessel Hoisting her Ensign, unattributed, in Masterman Ready; or, the Wreck of the Pacific. Written for Young People. Vol. II. (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1842), p. 246.
291
Figure 54. Rüstig, die Wilden und Wilhelm, unattributed, in Sigismund Rüstig. Der Bremer Steuermann. Ein neuer Robinson, nach Kapitän Marryat frei für die deutsche Jugend bearbeitet. Mit 94 Bildern in 1 Bande. 19th ed. (Leipzig, Druck und Verlag von B. G. Teubner, 1887), p. 349.
292
Figure 55. Lithograph No. 37 (a ship is sighted), unattributed, in Der neue Robinson, oder Schiffbruch des Pacific. Eine Erzählung für die Jugend. Nach dem Englischen des Kapitän Marryat bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Mit 54 Abbildungen. (Stuttgart: Schmidt & Spring, 1843), p. 273.
293
Figure 56. Lithographs No. 7 and 8 (albatross and lightning strike), unattributed, in Der neue Robinson, oder Schiffbruch des Pacific. Eine Erzählung für die Jugend. Nach dem Englischen des Kapitän Marryat bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Mit 54 Abbildungen. (Stuttgart: Schmidt & Spring, 1843), p. 25. 294
Figure 57. Chapter 43 title vignette, Hurtig entdeckt ein Schiff, unattributed, in Der Neue Robinson, oder Schiffbruch des Pacific. Eine Erzählung für die Jugend. Nach dem Englischen des Kapitän Marryat bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Dritte mit 77 Holzschnitten verschönerte Auflage. (Stuttgart: Schmidt & Spring, 1854), p. 240.
295
Figure 58. Frontispiece, unattributed, in Der Neue Robinson, oder Schiffbruch des Pacific. Eine Erzählung für die Jugend. Nach dem Englischen des Kapitän Marryat bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Dritte mit 77 Holzschnitten verschönerte Auflage. (Stuttgart: Schmidt & Spring, 1854).
296
Figure 59. Vignette, unattributed, in Der Neue Robinson, oder Schiffbruch des Pacific. Eine Erzählung für die Jugend. Nach dem Englischen des Kapitän Marryat bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Dritte mit 77 Holzschnitten verschönerte Auflage. (Stuttgart: Schmidt & Spring, 1854), p. 202.
297
Figure 60. “Der Löwe sprang auf Römer und warf ihn mit einem einzigen Schlage von dem Pferde.” (S. 141), by H. Kolb, in Steuermann Ready, der Neue Robinson, oder Der Schiffbruch des Pacific. Nach Kapitän Marryat für die Jugend bearbeitet von Gustav Höcker. Mit 13 Illustrationen und 1 Plan der Insel von H. Kolb. (Stuttgart: Druck & Verlag von Gebrüder Kröner, 1881), p. 143. 298
Figure 61. Original watercolor by W. Hoffmann, in Sigismund Rüstig oder der Schiffbruch des Pacific. Eine Erzählung für die Jugend. Nach Kapitän Marryat frei bearbeitet von Paul Moritz. Mit vier Farbendruckbildern nach Aquarellen von W. Hoffmann. Zweite Auflage. (Stuttgart: Thienemann, 1895), p. 106. 299
Figure 62. Original watercolor by W. Hoffmann, in Sigismund Rüstig oder der Schiffbruch des Pacific. Eine Erzählung für die Jugend. Nach Kapitän Marryat frei bearbeitet von Paul Moritz. Mit vier Farbendruckbildern nach Aquarellen von W. Hoffmann. Zweite Auflage. (Stuttgart: Thienemann, 1895), p. 144. 300
Figure 63. Cover image, designed by W. Zweigle, in Das Blockhaus. Erzählung aus dem nordamerikanischen Befreiungskriege. Nach J. F. Coopers Roman “Wyandotte” frei bearbeitet von Gustav Höcker. (Stuttgart, Berlin & Leipzig: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1890). 301
Figure 64. Untitled illustration from original watercolor by J. Simmler, in Conanchet, der Indianerhäuptling. Eine Erzählung für die reifere Jugend. Nach dem Englischen des J. F. Cooper bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. 6th ed. (Stuttgart: K. Thienemanns Verlag, 1886), frontispiece. 302
Figure 65. Cover image, designed by G. Bartsch, in Cooper’s Seegemälde. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Adam Stein. 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Alfred Oehmigke’s Verlag, 1865).
303
Figure 66. Cover illustration for Der Bienenjäger, designed by H. Leutemann and lithographed by W. Schäfer, in Der Bienenjäger. Eine Erzählung für die reifere Jugend. Frei nach Cooper bearbeitet von G. Mensch. 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Alfred Oehmigke’s Verlag, 1876).
304
Figure 67. Chapter illustration for Der Pfadfinder, engraved at Carl Mayer’s Kunst- Anstalt in Nuremberg, in J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane, neu aus dem Englischen übertragen von Dr. C. Kolb. Zweiter Band. Der Pfadfinder oder das Binnenmeer. 4th ed. (Stuttgart: Hoffmann’sche Verlags-Buchhandlung, 1853), frontispiece.
305
Figure 68. Chapter illustration for Der Wildtödter, engraved at Carl Mayer’s Kunst- Anstalt in Nuremberg, in J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane, neu aus dem Englischen übertragen von Dr. C. Kolb. Zwölfter Band. Der Wildtödter. 4th ed. (Stuttgart: Hoffmann’sche Verlags-Buchhandlung, 1853), frontispiece.
306
Figure 69. Untitled steel engraving, engraved by E. Dertinger, in Lederstrumpf- Erzählungen von Cooper. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. 6th unaltered ed. (Stuttgart: Verlag von Schmidt & Spring, 1867), p. 175.
307
Figure 70. Frontispiece, unattributed, in J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane, neu aus dem Englischen übertragen von Dr. C. Kolb. Dreißigster Band. Der Bienenjäger, oder die Eichen-Lichtungen. (Stuttgart: Hoffmann’sche Verlags-Buchhandlung, 1854), frontispiece.
308
Figure 71. Chapter illustration for Lucy Hardinge, engraved at Carl Mayer’s Kunst- Anstalt in Nuremberg, in J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane, neu aus dem Englischen übertragen von Dr. C. Kolb. Neunzehnter Band. Lucy Hardinge, oder Miles Wallingfords Abenteuer zu Land und zur See, Zweiter Theil. 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Hoffmann’sche Verlags-Buchhandlung, 1853), frontispiece.
309
Figure 72. Chapter illustration for Miles Wallingford, engraved at Carl Mayer’s Kunst- Anstalt in Nuremberg, in J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane, neu aus dem Englischen übertragen. Achtzehnter Band. Miles Wallingfords Abenteuer zu Land und zur See. 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Hoffmann’sche Verlags-Buchhandlung, 1853), frontispiece.
310
Figure 73. Untitled steel engraving, unattributed, in Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Erster Band. (Stuttgart: Verlag von Schmidt & Spring, 1845), p. 193.
311
Figure 74. Untitled steel engraving, unattributed, in Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Band 2. (Stuttgart: Verlag von Schmidt & Spring, 1845), frontispiece.
312
Figure 75. Untitled steel engraving, unattributed, in Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Band 2. (Stuttgart: Verlag von Schmidt & Spring, 1845), p. 203. 313
Figure 76. Untitled steel engraving, unattributed, in Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Band 2. (Stuttgart: Verlag von Schmidt & Spring, 1845), p. 383. 314
Figure 77. Untitled steel engraving, unattributed, in Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Band 2. (Stuttgart: Verlag von Schmidt & Spring, 1845), p. 473. 315
Figure 78. Title image, designed by W. Schäfer, in Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen für die Jugend bearbeitet von Adam Stein. 17th ed. (Leipzig: Alfred Oehmigke’s Verlag, 1883). 316
Figure 79. Untitled image, engraved by E. Dertinger, in Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. 6th unaltered ed. (Stuttgart: Verlag von Schmidt & Spring, 1867), p. 229. 317
Figure 80. Untitled image, engraved by E. Dertinger, in Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. 6th unaltered ed. (Stuttgart: Verlag von Schmidt & Spring, 1867), p. 701. 318
Figure 81. Kampf des Sioux und des Pawnee, designed by G. Bartsch, in Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen für die Jugend bearbeitet von Adam Stein. 5th ed. (Neu- Ruppin: Verlag von Alfred Oehmigke, 1869), frontispiece.
319
Figure 82. Heyward entführt, designed by G. Bartsch, in Cooper’s Lederstrumpf- Erzählungen für die Jugend bearbeitet von Adam Stein. 5th ed. (Neu-Ruppin: Verlag von Alfred Oehmigke, 1869), p. 257. 320
Figure 83. Title image, designed by G. Bartsch, in Cooper’s Seegemälde. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Adam Stein. 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Alfred Oehmigke’s Verlag, 1865).
321
Figure 84. Indianische Waffen und Zierrathen, designed by H. Leutemann, in Der Scalpjäger. Abenteurer-Fahrten im Westen oder Der amerikanische Robinson. Erlebnisse, Natur- und Sittenschilderungen aus dem amerikanischen Jagd-, Kriegs-, Reise- und Waldleben. (Leipzig: Verlag von Otto Spamer, 1857), p. 105. 322
Figure 85. Illustration for “Die Jagd des grauen Bären,” lithograph by Theodor Hosemann, in Atlantis, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Winckelmann & Söhne, 1873), p. 210.
323
Figure 86. Illustration for “Der Krokodilfang in Süd-Amerika,” lithograph by Theodor Hosemann, in Land-u. Seebilder (Berlin: Verlag von Winckelmann u. Söhne, 1841), p. 121. 324
Figure 87. Cover illustration for Amerikanische Reisebilder, unattributed, in Amerikanische Reisebilder, 5th ed. (Berlin: Verlag von Winckelmann & Söhne, 1885)
325 Works Cited Primary Sources
Bade, Theodor, ed. Der Scalpjäger. Abenteurer-Fahrten im Westen oder Der amerikanische Robinson. Erlebnisse, Natur- und Sittenschilderungen aus dem amerikanischen Jagd-, Kriegs-, Reise- und Waldleben. Herausgegeben von Th. Bade. Mit vielen Tonbildern nach Originalzeichnungen von H. Leutemann, sowie mit 100 in den Text gedruckten Abbildungen, einem Titelbilde, Frontispice, etc. Leipzig, Otto Spamer, 1857. Campe, Joachim Heinrich. Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. 12th authorized ed., Braunschweig, Schulbuchhandlung, 1816. ---. Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. Reutlingen, J. J. Mäcken, 1827. ---. Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder. 40th authorized ed., Braunschweig, Schulbuchhandlung, 1848. ---. Robinson der Jüngere, ein Lesebuch für Kinder zur allgemeinen Schulencyclopädie gehörig. 4th authorized ed., Braunschweig, Schulbuchhandlung, 1789. ---. Robinson der Jüngere, zur angenehmen und nützlichen Unterhaltung für Kinder. Frankfurt & Leipzig, 1781. ---. Robinson der Jüngere, zur angenehmen und nützlichen Unterhaltung für Kinder. Edited by Alwin Binder and Heinrich Richartz, Stuttgart, Reclam, 1981. Cooper, James Fenimore. J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane, neu aus dem Englischen übertragen. Zweiter Band. Der Pfadfinder oder das Binnenmeer. Translated by Dr. C. Kolb, 4th ed., Stuttgart, Hoffmann’sche Verlags- Buchhandlung, 1853. ---. J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane, neu aus dem Englischen übertragen. Zwölfter Band. Der Wildtödter. 4th ed., Stuttgart, Hoffmann’sche Verlags-Buchhandlung, 1853. ---. J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane, neu aus dem Englischen übertragen. Achtzehnter Band. Miles Wallingfords Abenteuer zu Land und zur See. Translated by Eduard Mauch, 2nd ed., Stuttgart, Hoffmann’sche Verlags-Buchhandlung, 1853. ---. J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane, neu aus dem Englischen übertragen. Neunzehnter Band. Lucy Hardinge, oder Miles Wallingfords Abenteuer zu Land und zur See, Zweiter Theil. Translated by Dr. Carl Kolb, 2nd ed., Stuttgart, Hoffmann’sche Verlags-Buchhandlung, 1853. ---. J. F. Cooper’s Amerikanische Romane, neu aus dem Englischen übertragen. Dreißigster Band. Der Bienenjäger, oder die Eichen-Lichtungen. Stuttgart, Hoffmann’sche Verlags-Buchhandlung, 1854. ---. The Leather-Stocking Tales. Vol. I. The Deerslayer. Author’s rev. ed., New York, George P. Putnam, 1850.
326 ---. The Leather-Stocking Tales. Vol. II. The Last of the Mohicans. Author’s rev. ed., New York, George P. Putnam, 1851. ---. The Leather-Stocking Tales. Vol. III. The Pathfinder. Author’s rev. ed., New York, George P. Putnam, 1851. Dielitz, Theodor. Amerikanische Reisebilder für die Jugend bearbeitet von Theodor Dielitz, Director der Königstädtischen Real-Schule in Berlin. Mit 8 feinen Farbendruck-Bildern nach Th. Hosemann. 2nd ed., Berlin, Winckelmann & Söhne, 1856. —. Atlantis. Bilder aus dem Wald-u. Prairieleben Amerika’s für die Jugend bearbeitet von Theodor Dielitz, Director der Königstädtischen Real-Schule in Berlin. Mit 8 colorirten Bildern nach Th. Hosemann. 2nd ed., Berlin, Winckelmann & Söhne, 1873. —. Die Helden der Neuzeit. Erzählungen aus der neueren Geschichte für die reifere Jugend von Theodor Dielitz, Director d. Königstädtischen Realschule in Berlin. Mit 8 fein illuminirt Bildern nach Th. Hosemann. Berlin, Winckelmann & Söhne, 1850. —. Grundriss der Weltgeschichte für Gymnasien und Realschulen. Berlin, Duncken & Humblot, 1836. —. Land- u. Seebilder für die Jugend bearbeitet von Theodor Dielitz, Oberlehrer an der Königl. Realschule. Mit 8 fein illumin. Berlin, Winckelmann & Söhne, 1841. —. Lebensbilder. Der Jugend vorgeführt von Theodor Dielitz, Oberlehrer an der Königl. Realschule. Mit 8 illuminirten Bildern. Berlin, Winckelmann & Söhne, 1840. —. Naturbilder u. Reiseskizzen für die Jugend bearbeitet von Theodor Dielitz, Director der Königstädtschen Real-Schule in Berlin. Mit 8 feinen Farbendruck-Bildern nach Th. Hosemann. 6th ed. Berlin, Winckelmann & Söhne, 1890. —. Ost und West. Neue Land- u. Seebilder für die Jugend bearbeitet von Th. Dielitz, Director der Königstädtischen Realschule in Berlin. Mit 8 illuminirten Bildern v. Th. Hosemann. Berlin, Winckelmann & Söhne, 1855. —. Reisebilder. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Th. Dielitz, Direktor der Königstädtischen Realschule in Berlin, Mit Farbendruckbildern nach Th. Hosemann. 7th ed. Berlin, Winckelmann & Söhne, 1881. —. Streif- und Jagdzüge für die Jugend bearbeitet von Theodor Dielitz, Director der Königstädtschen Real-Schule in Berlin. Mit 8 fein colorirten Bildern. 6th ed., Berlin, Winckelmann & Söhne, 1851. —.“Ueber die erziehende Kraft der Schule.” Jahresbericht über die hiesige Königliche Realschule, Berlin, A. W. Hayn, 1841, pp. 1-27. —. Zonenbilder für die Jugend bearbeitet von Theodor Dielitz, Director d. Königstädt’schen Real-Schule in Berlin. Mit 8 fein colorirten Bildern. Berlin, Winckelmann & Söhne, 1852. Hoffmann, Franz. Conanchet, der Indianerhäuptling. Eine Erzählung für die reifere Jugend. Nach dem Englischen des J. F. Cooper bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Mit 6 Bildern in Farbendruck nach Aquarellen von J. Simmler. 6th ed, Stuttgart, K. Thienemanns, 1886. 327 ---. Der Neue Robinson, oder Schiffbruch des Pacific. Eine Erzählung für die Jugend. Nach dem Englischen des Kapitän Marryat bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Dritte mit 77 Holzschnitten verschönerte Auflage. Stuttgart, Schmidt & Spring, 1854. ---. Der neue Robinson, oder Schiffbruch des Pacific. Eine Erzählung für die Jugend. Nach dem Englischen des Kapitän Marryat bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Mit 54 Abbildungen. Stuttgart, Schmidt & Spring, 1843. ---. Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Mit sechzehn Stahlstichen. 6th unaltered ed., Stuttgart, Schmidt & Spring, 1867. ---. Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Erster Band. Mit 8 Stahlstichen. Stuttgart, Schmidt & Spring, 1845. ---. Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen von Cooper. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Franz Hoffmann. Band 2. Mit 12 Stahlstichen. Stuttgart, Schmidt & Spring, 1845. ---. Wohlthun trägt Zinsen. Eine Erzählung für meine jungen Freunde. Von Franz Hoffmann. Mit vier Stahlstichen. Zweite unveränderte Auflage. Stuttgart, Schmidt & Spring, 1859. Höcker, Gustav. Das Blockhaus. Erzählung aus dem nordamerikanischen Befreiungskriege. Nach J. F. Coopers Roman “Wyandotte” frei bearbeitet von Gustav Höcker. Mit vier Bildern von W. Zweigle. Stuttgart, Berlin & Leipzig, Union, 1890. ---. Steuermann Ready, der Neue Robinson, oder Der Schiffbruch des Pacific. Nach Kapitän Marryat für die Jugend bearbeitet von Gustav Höcker. Mit 13 Illustrationen und 1 Plan der Insel von H. Kolb. Stuttgart, Gebrüder Kröner, 1881. Laube, Heinrich, translator. Sigismund Rüstig. Der Bremer Steuermann. Ein neuer Robinson, nach Kapitän Marryat frei für die deutsche Jugend bearbeitet. Mit 94 Bildern in 1 Bande. 19th ed., Leipzig, B. G. Teubner, 1887. Marryat, Frederick. Masterman Ready; or, the Wreck of the Pacific. Written for Young People. Vol. I. London, Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1841. ---. Masterman Ready; or, the Wreck of the Pacific. Written for Young People. Vol. II. London, Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1842. ---. 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328 Mensch, G. Der Bienenjäger. Eine Erzählung für die reifere Jugend. Frei nach Cooper bearbeitet von G. Mensch. Mit sechs Bildern in Farbendruck nach Zeichnungen von H. Leutemann lithographiert von W. Schäfer. 2nd ed., Leipzig, Oehmigke, 1876. Moritz, Paul, translator. Sigismund Rüstig oder der Schiffbruch des Pacific. Eine Erzählung für die Jugend. Nach Kapitän Marryat frei bearbeitet von Paul Moritz. Mit vier Farbendruckbildern nach Aquarellen von W. Hoffmann. Zweite Auflage. Stuttgart, Thienemann, 1895. Stein, Adam. Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen für die Jugend bearbeitet von Adam Stein. Mit 6 Bildern von G. Bartsch. 5th ed. Neu-Ruppin: Verlag von Alfred Oehmigke, 1869. ---. Cooper’s Lederstrumpf-Erzählungen für die Jugend bearbeitet von Adam Stein. Mit sechs Bildern in Farbendruck von W. Schäfer. 17th ed., Leipzig, Oehmigke, 1883. ---. Cooper’s Seegemälde. Für die Jugend bearbeitet von Adam Stein. Mit sechs Bildern in Farbendruck nach Zeichnungen von G. Bartsch. 2nd ed., Leipzig, Oehmigke (Moritz Geißler), 1865. Wyß, Johann David Der Schweizersche Robinson, oder der Schiffbrüchige Schweizer- Prediger und seine Familie. Ein lehrreiches Buch für kinder und Kinder-Freunde zu Stadt und Land. Zweytes Bändchen. Mit einer Karte, edited by Johann Rudolf Wyß, Zürich, Orell, Füßli & Compagnie, 1813.
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337 Vita
Matthew Owen Anderson was born in Renton, Washington. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in German and Philosophy from Pacific Lutheran University in 2011, spent ten months at the Immanuel Kant Gymnasium in Lachendorf, Germany teaching English with a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship from 2011–2012, and began his graduate career in the Germanic Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) in September 2012. Upon completing his Master of Arts in Germanic Studies in May 2014, he began doctoral work with a focus on historical German children’s literature and visual culture. He was the recipient of a 2017 research fellowship from the American Friends of Marbach (AFM) and a 2017–2018 Fulbright Research Grant to Germany, at which time he completed the majority of the research for this dissertation at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv (Marbach) and the Children’s and Youth Book Collection at the Berlin State Library. During his time at UT, he has also coordinated the German Film Series, supervised the German Outreach Program, and worked as Editorial Assistant to Sabine Hake, editor of the German Studies Review.
Address: [email protected] This dissertation was typed by the author.
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