German Writing, American Reading German Writing, American Reading Women and the Import of Fiction, 1866–1917 LYNNE TatlOCK THE OHIO StatE UNIVERSITY PRESS | COLUMBUS Copyright © 2012 by The Ohio State University. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tatlock, Lynne, 1950– German writing, American reading : women and the import of fiction, 1866–1917 / Lynne Tatlock. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8142-1194-6 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8142-9295-2 (cd-rom) 1. American literature—German influences. 2. German literature—Translations into English—History and criticism. 3. German literature—Women authors—History and criticism. 4. German literature—Appreciation—United States. 5. Literature and soci- ety—United States. I. Title. PS159.G3T38 2012 810.9'3243—dc23 2012018741 Cover design by Laurence J. Nozik Text design by Juliet Williams Type set in Adobe Minion Pro Printed by Thomson-Shore, Inc. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48-1992. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Joe CONTENTS List of Illustrations ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii PART ONE · German Writing, American Reading Chapter 1 Introduction: Made in Germany, Read in America 3 Chapter 2 German Women Writers at Home and Abroad 28 PART TWO · German Texts as American Books Chapter 3 “Family Likenesses”: Marlitt’s Texts as American Books 53 Chapter 4 The German Art of the Happy Ending: Embellishing and Expanding the Boundaries of Home 83 Chapter 5 Enduring Domesticity: German Novels of Remarriage 121 Chapter 6 Feminized History: German Men in American Translation 156 PART THREE · Three Americanizers: Translating, Publishing, Reading Chapter 7 Family Matters in Postbellum America: Ann Mary Crittenden Coleman (1813–91) 199 Chapter 8 German Fiction Clothed in “so brilliant a garb”: Annis Lee Wister (1830–1908) 216 Chapter 9 Germany at Twenty-Five Cents a Copy: Mary Stuart Smith (1834–1917) 236 Conclusion 263 viii Contents AppENDICES A American Periodicals Cited 267 B Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century U.S. Library Catalogs and Finding Lists Consulted as an Index of Enduring Circulation 269 C Total German Novels Translated in America (1866–1917) by Woman Author 270 D Total Number of Translations of German Novels in the United States (1866–1917) by Woman Author 271 E Total American Publications (1866–1917) by Woman Author 272 Notes 273 Bibliography 322 Index 331 ILLustratIONS Figure 1.1 Centered Moving Averages of the Total Number of New Translations of German Novels by the 17 Women in the Dataset Published in the United States. 15 Figure 1.2 Centered Moving Averages of U.S. Publications (New Translations, New Editions, and Reprint Editions) of German Novels by the 17 Women in the Dataset. 15 Figure 3.1 E. Marlitt, Gold Elsie (New York: Chatterton-Peck, n.d.). Author’s copy. 60 Figure 3.2 Front Cover and Spine, E. Marlitt, The Old Mam’selle’s Secret (New York: Hurst & Company, n.d.). Author’s copy. 66–67 Figure 5.1 W. Heimburg, A Maiden’s Choice (New York: R. F. Fenno & Company, 1899). Author’s copy. 135 Figure 5.2 W. Heimburg, Misjudged (Chicago: M. A. Donohue & Co., n.d.). Author’s copy. 142 Figure 8.1 Annis Lee Wister. From the Furness Manuscripts, Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, Philadelphia. 221 Figure 8.2 Adolf Streckfuss, The Lonely House (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1907). Author’s copy. 232 Figure 9.1 E. Marlitt, Gold Elsie, (New York: Munro, 1887). Copy held by Rare Books and Manuscripts in The Ohio State University Libraries. 245 · ix · x Illustrations AppENDICES C Total German Novels Translated in America (1866–1917) by Woman Author 270 D Total Number of Translations of German Novels in the United States (1866–1917) by Woman Author 271 E Total American Publications (1866–1917) by Woman Author 272 PREfacE When in 2007 Rochester University launched its online destination for “read- ers, editors, and translators interested in finding out about modern and con- temporary international literature,” the site was polemically named “Three Percent.” Three percent corresponds to the estimated percentage of all books published in translation in the United States. As further noted on the web- site’s home page, the total number of books of poetry and fiction amounts to a much lower percentage of the total titles published, that is, around 0.7%.1 We, however, mistake past American reading if we draw conclusions based on the present state of things. In the Gilded Age a significant percentage of books published in the United States consisted of books in translation, and Ameri- cans read internationally even at a moment of national consolidation after the divisive Civil War. A subset of Americans’ international reading—nearly a hundred original texts, approximately 180 American translations, more than a thousand editions and reprint editions, and hundreds of thousands of books strong—consisted of popular German fiction written by women and translated by American women. The adventures of this fiction in the United States concern us here. · xi · ACKNowLEDGMENTS This study emerges from a glimmer of an idea I had longer ago than I care to remember. It only gradually became feasible as I returned to it intermittently over many years and began to uncover information that I had not previously suspected existed, in particular, the historical record left behind by the three translators, Ann Mary Coleman, Annis Lee Wister, and Mary Stuart Smith. I would like to thank three former graduate research assistants, Shelly Stumme Schrappen, April Seager, and especially Alyssa Howards, who early on aided me in assembling material and locating archives that were to become critical to my work. Since their early work, I have been aided in various ways and in various phases of this project, thanks to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, by research assistants including Amy Cislo, Benjamin Davis, Anne Fritz, Magda- len Stanley Majors, Faruk Pašić, Shane Peterson, and Brooke Shafar. When I began the task of assembling and managing a database that cur- rently holds nearly 1,000 detailed entries, I turned to the Humanities Digital Workshop at Washington University. Under the able supervision of Perry Trolard, the assistant director of the workshop, student fellows and assistants, including Stephen Aiken, Catherine Coquillette, Erika Deal, Linda Donald- son, Courtney LeCompte, Anna Leeper, Ervin Malakaj, Corey Twitchell, Petra Watzke, and Magdalen Stanley Majors, helped compile, enter, and find ways of managing and visualizing the data. Maggie deserves special recognition for her work in cleaning up the data in preparation for generating the graphs included in this book. I thank all of these student researchers for so willingly sharing my enthusiasms during their time working with me. I am greatly indebted to Stephen Pentecost, who designed the template for data entry, generated the graphs in chapter 1 and in Appendices C, D, and E, helped pre- pare scans for the black-and-white illustrations, and otherwise assisted Perry Trolard in guiding the student teams in the Humanities Digital Workshop. Perry’s successor in late 2011, Douglas Knox, immediately provided invalu- · xiii · xiv Acknowledgments able support by, among other things, pointing me toward the online histori- cal database of the Muncie Public Library. Sabbatical leave promised by then Dean of Arts and Sciences Edward S. Macias and subsequently granted by Acting Dean of Arts and Sciences Ralph S. Quatrano allowed me the time I needed in the academic year 2009–10 finally to make sense of and give form to the data I had collected over the years. I gratefully acknowledge the following libraries and archives for the per- mission to quote from materials from their holdings and their librarians who facilitated my access to this material: John Jordan Crittenden Papers Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky; Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard Uni- versity; Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Rare Books and Manuscripts at The Ohio State University. I am obliged to many friends and colleagues who offered encouragement and advice along the way, among others Lisabeth M. Hock, Jana Mikota, Renate Schmidt, Jim Walker, and Alexandra K. Wettlaufer. Lorie A. Vanchena deserves special appreciation for her supportive reading of a draft of the man- uscript. I thank Kirsten Belgum for many a stimulating conversation about the project and the challenge of transatlantic scholarship. My dear friend and colleague Michael Sherberg provided a patient and willing ear and eye, opti- mism, and good advice from start to finish. Most of all, he was always ready to share my excitement and give me an occasional push. I would also especially like to thank Sandy Crooms, Senior Editor at The Ohio State University Press, for supporting and shepherding the book and Maggie Diehl for overseeing the copyediting of the manuscript. The anony- mous readers for the press offered useful suggestions and asked helpful ques- tions that inspired my final revisions of the manuscript. It has been a privilege and pleasure to work with the staff at the press. Finally, I am grateful to my husband and colleague, Joseph F. Loewen- stein, who was interested in the project from its earliest beginnings, asked hard questions, and saw to it, when the data became so extensive, that I worked with the Humanities Digital Workshop at Washington University. Without our many years of conversation, this work would likely have been a different one.