Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Auserlesene Lieder Gedichte und Balladen. Hammersmith: Doves Press, 1916. Octavo. 226pp. One of 185 copies. Printed by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson. Marginal titles in red. According to the printer "In this Anthology, the Poems selected have been arranged in three principal groups, with four interwoven Poems indicative of Goethe's attitude to Life, in such a way as to form EIN STRAUSS; a nosegay of 'visionary flowers.'" Bound in full, tannish vellum, albeit color appears natural, shallow crease along spine, motes of foxing to top edge, else near fine with Doves Bindery stamp at rear pastedown. Inscribed by Paul Hirsch to his daughter, Renate, on February 24, 1941. Hirsch, trained as an engineer but was chiefly occupied as a writer, musician, and bibliophile, amassing a significant music library with a roster of visitors that included Theodor Adorno, Wilhelm Furtwangler, and Stefan Zweig (the presence of these latter two is foreboding, given subsequent events). After the Nazi party came into power, he organized with the help of Cambridge professor Edward J. Dent the escape of his family and the complicated train transport for his library. In early 1938 he fell ill and was then sent to recover in a Munich sanatorium. On April 25, 1941, only two months after the present inscription, he was once again committed. Based on the inscription here, it appears that he was able to continue purchasing and sending books, despite the scrutiny of Nazi censors. A Jew, he was deported to the Sobibor concentration camp on June 15, 1942, but apparently survived, going on to sell his collection to the British Museum in 1946. He died in 1951. His bookplate laid in, as is the bookplate of his daughter, Renate Hirsch Schuster.
Sachgebiete: Deutschland, Literatur bis ca. 1900, Pressendrucke, Großbritannien
06.08.2026 - 17:29
1960,- EUR
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