Franz Blei (pseudonyms: Medardus, Dr. Peregrinus Steinhövel, Amadée de la Houlette, Franciscus Amadeus, Gussie Mc-Bill, Prokop Templin, Heliogabal, Nikodemus Schuster, L. O. G., Hans Adolar; January 18, 1871,
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
July 10, 1942,
Westbury,
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
) was an essayist, playwright and translator. He was also noted as a
bibliophile
Bibliophilia or bibliophilism is the love of books. A bibliophile or bookworm is an individual who loves and frequently reads and/or collects books.
Profile
The classic bibliophile is one who loves to read, admire and collect books, often ama ...
, a
critic
A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governmen ...
, an
editor in chief
An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies.
The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...
and
publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
. He was a friend and collaborator of
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...
.
Life
He was the son of a shoemaker and trained as an architect. As a member of the Jewish literati, he was at great risk in Nazi-occupied Europe and eventually succeeded after a lengthy odyssey in reaching the USA in 1941 where he settled in
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 ...
.
Work
He translated into
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
work by
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among t ...
,
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
and
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...
among others and also published his own monograph on the paintings of the symbolist
Félicien Rops
Félicien Victor Joseph Rops (7 July 1833 – 23 August 1898) was a Belgian artist associated with Symbolism and the Parisian Fin-de Siecle. He was a painter, illustrator, caricaturist and a prolific and innovative print maker, particularly in ...
. He was also a prolific editor of small-press journals.
Kafka said of him: "Franz Blei is much cleverer, and greater, than what he writes." (Janouch, 1971. "Conversations With Kafka").
''Amethyst'' and ''The Opals''
From December 1905 to November 1906, he was the editor of the private magazine ''Amethyst'' (pub. Hans von Weber) and then ''The Opals'', which were available by subscription only and were mildly pornographic. The journals featured the artwork of
Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Woodblock printing in Japan, Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He ...
and
Félicien Rops
Félicien Victor Joseph Rops (7 July 1833 – 23 August 1898) was a Belgian artist associated with Symbolism and the Parisian Fin-de Siecle. He was a painter, illustrator, caricaturist and a prolific and innovative print maker, particularly in ...
, texts by
Jules Laforgue
Jules Laforgue (; 16 August 1860 – 20 August 1887) was a Franco-Uruguayan poet, often referred to as a Symbolist poet. Critics and commentators have also pointed to Impressionism as a direct influence and his poetry has been called "part-symbo ...
and also erotic prose from translated texts by
Paul Verlaine
Paul-Marie Verlaine (; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the ''fin de siècle'' in international and ...
and classic erotic plays and poems from around the world. Only 800 numbered copies were produced of each issue, and the young Kafka had a subscription. ''The Opals'' was the first to publish
Carl Einstein
Carl Einstein, born Karl Einstein, also known by pseudonym Savine Ree Urian (26 April 1885 – 5 July 1940), was an influential German Jewish writer, art historian, anarchist, and critic.
Regarded as one of the first critics to appreciate the dev ...
's ''Bebuquin'', the first German expressionist novel. These literary small-press journals, known about by Kafka scholars for many decades, became the basis for a
silly season
In the United Kingdom, silly season is a period in the summer months known for frivolous news stories in the mass media. The term was first attested in 1861, and listed in the second (1894) edition of ''Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable''. ...
press story in 2008,
Franz Kafka’s porn brought out of the closet - Times Online
at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk in ''The Times'' of London, when a novelist promoting a new book claimed to have discovered Kafka's 'secret pornography stash' among his archived papers.
''Hyperion''
From 1908 to 1909, he co-edited the short-lived journal '' Hyperion'' with Carl Sternheim, which was the first to publish work by a young Franz Kafka. The first issue published a short fragment of Kafka's story "Description of a Struggle
"Description of a Struggle" (german: "Beschreibung eines Kampfes") is a short story by Franz Kafka. It contains the dialogues "Conversation with the Supplicant" ("Gespräch mit dem Beter") and "Conversation with the Drunk" ("Gespräch mit dem Bet ...
". More substantial extracts of the work were published in the final issue of ''Hyperion'' in the spring of 1909. Extracts from another seven Kafka works were also published in the magazine.
Bibliography
* Paul Raabe, "Franz Kafka und Franz Blei", in: ''F. Kafka. Ein Symposium. Datierung, Funde, Materialien,'' Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin 1965, pp. 7–20.
* Ulrich E Bach, "Franz Bleis einsames Exil." In: ''Deutschsprachige Exilliteratur seit 1933'' 3/I USA Supplement. Ed. John M. Spalek, Konrad Feilchenfeldt and Sandra H. Hawrylchak. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010: 3-13
* Ulrich E Bach, "’Das Formierte der Erotik’: Franz Blei und der erotische Buchhandel." In: Christine Hauck, Johannes Frimmel and Anke Vogel (eds.), ''Erotisch-pornographische Lesestoffe: Das Geschäft mit Erotik im deutschen Sprachraum vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart''. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2015. 143-158
Notes
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Blei, Franz
19th-century Austrian dramatists and playwrights
Austrian essayists
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Translators to German
Austrian critics
Austrian editors
Austrian Jews
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Bibliophiles
Writers from Vienna
Jewish emigrants from Austria to the United States after the Anschluss
1871 births
1942 deaths
Male essayists
19th-century translators
19th-century Austrian male writers
20th-century translators
20th-century Austrian male writers
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19th-century essayists
20th-century essayists
20th-century Austrian dramatists and playwrights
Austrian male dramatists and playwrights