Adolphe Danziger De Castro, also known as Gustav Adolf Danziger, Adolph Danziger, Adolphe Danziger and Adolphe De Castro, (November 6, 1859 – March 4, 1959) was a Jewish scholar, journalist, lawyer and author of poems, novels and short stories.

Life

Adolphe Danziger De Castro was born Abram Dancygier, the son of Symcha Jakub Dancygier and Chaja Szarka, near

Dobrzyń nad Wisłą Dobrzyń nad Wisłą (Polish pronunciation: ; german: Dobrin an der Weichsel) is a town in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland. It lies on the Vistula River in the vicinity of Włocławek. As of December 2021, the town has a population of ...

Congress Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...

. He claimed that the ancestor of the family Dancygier was a Portuguese Jew named Israel

De Castro The de Castro surname is used by a Sephardic Jewish family of Portuguese, Spanish and Italian origin. Soon after the establishment of the Portuguese Inquisition, members of the family emigrated to Bordeaux, Bayonne, Hamburg, and various cities ...

who migrated from

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

to the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

in the 16th century and whose descendants settled in Danzig, whence the surname Danziger originated. Danziger De Castro also claimed that he had received the rabbinical ordination by Rabbi Israel Jehoszua Trunk called 'R. Shiele Kutner' (1820–1893) around 1877 and had obtained a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in oriental philology at the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

in 1882. In 1883 he emigrated to the U.S.A., where he first lived as a journalist and teacher in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

and

Vincennes Vincennes (, ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is next to but does not include the Château de Vincennes and Bois de Vincennes, which are attached ...

(IN), before settling in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

in November 1884, where he practiced as a dentist and free-lance journalist until 1900. In 1900 he moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

to get a book published, abandoning his first wife and the children. In 1903-04 he served as vice-consul of the United States in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

. Since that time he worked as an attorney at law. In 1904-05 he lived in

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

, Scotland, between 1905 and 1921 in California. On February 1, 1920, he was one of the thirty-nine founders of the Sephardic Community of Los Angeles (La Comunidad Sefardi) and was elected the first president of the congregation. Between 1921 and 1926 he spent some time in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, between 1927 and 1936 he lived in New York City, since 1936 in Los Angeles. He was first married in to Bertha M. Levy (b. 1867) and had the children Beatrice Danziger (1891–1974, married to William K. Dolan) and Nathan Danziger (1894–1965), who changed his name to Nathaniel Dolan. He got married a second time - without having been divorced from his first wife - in 1907 to Georgina Sterling McClellan (1880–1935) and, after his second wife's death, a third time to Maria Paez Urquidi. Adolphe Danziger De Castro died at almost 100 years in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

on March 4, 1959.

Works

Danziger translated the story "Der Mönch von Berchtesgaden" (The Monk of Berchtesgaden), by German author

Richard Voß Richard Voss (2 September 1851 – 10 June 1918) was a German dramatist and novelist. In standard German orthography, his name is printed as Voß. Biography Voss was born at Neu-Grape near Pyritz, in Pomerania, the son of a country squire. Th ...

, published in a German monthly magazine in 1891, into English and contracted

Ambrose Bierce Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – ) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and American Civil War veteran. His book ''The Devil's Dictionary'' was named as one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by t ...

, who supported Danziger's literary ambitions between 1886 and 1894, to edit the story. It was published as "The Monk and the Hangman’s Daughter" first in serial form in a San Francisco newspaper in 1891 and republished in book form in 1892. In 1903, he wrote the academic book ''Jewish Forerunners of Christianity'' on the Jewish Patriarchs of the 2nd Temple Period from Hillel through

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

until Rabbi Juda the Prince, the compiler of the

Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud ( he, תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, translit=Talmud Yerushalmi, often for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century ...

. H. P. Lovecraft, with whom Danziger De Castro corresponded between 1927 and 1936, revised two of his early short stories in the late 1920s; they were published in

Weird Tales ''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, prin ...

Partial bibliography

Essays

*"Extracts of the System of Jewish Philosophy and Religion of Maimonides", series of articles, in: ''The Jewish Voice'', St. Louis, 1888. *"The Position of Laboring Men Among the Ancient People, Especially Among the Ancient Jews in Palestine", series of articles in: ''The Jewish Voice'', St. Louis, 1888. *"The Story of Joseph, The son of Jacob: From the Legendary Lore of the Hebrews", series of articles in: ''The Jewish Voice'', St. Louis, 1889. *"The Jew in San Francisco, the Last Half Century", in: ''Overland Monthly and Out West magazine'', San Francisco: Vol. 25, No. 148, April 1895. *''Jewish Forerunners of Christianity'', New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1903 (re-issued in London: John Murray, 1904, and as ''Jesus Lived: Hebrew evidences of his existence and the rabbis who believed in him'', New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1926). *''The Sephardic movement in Spain: A present day review'', unpublished monograph (Box B-77-272, American Jewish Archives, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati), ca. 1920s. *''All I Care to Tell'', unpublished autobiography (at the American Jewish Archives, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati).

Novels

*''The Monk and the Hangman’s Daughter'', with Ambrose Bierce, Chicago: F. J. Schulte, 1892 (first published as serial in: ''San Francisco Examiner'', 1891). *''A Man, A Woman and A Million'', London: Sands & Co., 1902. *''Children of Fate: A Story of Passion'', New York: Brentano's, 1905. *''The Polish Baroness'', (n.p.), 1907. *''Helen Polska’s Lover, or The Merchant Prince'', (n.p.), 1908 (re-issued London, 1909).

Poems

*''After the Confession, and other verses'', Western Authors' Publishing Association, 1908. *''In the Garden of Abdullah, and other poems'', Los Angeles: Western Authors' Publishing Association, 1916. *''The Painter’s Dream'', Los Angeles, 1940. *''The Hybrid Prince of Egypt, plus, Song of the Arabian Desert'', Los Angeles: Western Authors Association, 1950.

Short stories

*''In the Confessional and The Following'', New York, San Francisco: Western Authors’ Publishing Association, 1893.

Revisions by H.P. Lovecraft

*"The Last Test", in: ''Weird Tales'', Vol. 12, No. 5, Nov. 1928 (revision of "A Sacrifice to Science", in: ''In the Confessional and the Following'', 1893) *"The Electric Executioner", in: ''Weird Tales'', Vol. 16, No. 2, Aug. 1930 (revision of "The Automatic Executioner", first published in: ''The Wave'', Nov. 14, 1891, republished in: ''In the Confessional and the Following'', 1893)

Film script

*''The World Crucified: A photoplay of the mundane activity of Christ'', 1921.

Biography

*''Portrait of Ambrose Bierce'', New York: The Century Co., 1929.

Notes

External links

"The Revised Adolphe Danziger de Castro"
(Christopher Powell)

(Christopher Powell) * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Danzigerdecastro, Adolphe 1859 births 1959 deaths People from Lipno County People from Płock Governorate Jews from the Russian Empire 19th-century Polish Jews Congress Poland emigrants to the United States Polish emigrants to the United States American people of Polish-Jewish descent Jewish American writers Jewish scholars American male journalists American lawyers American people of Portuguese descent