''Rock Crystal'' (german: Bergkristall; 1845) is a

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...

by Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter, about two children who become lost in a snowstorm in the Alps on

Christmas Eve Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipation ...

. It influenced

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...

. Mann called Stifter "one of the most extraordinary, the most enigmatic, the most secretly daring and the most strangely gripping narrators in world literature". Poet W. H. Auden wrote: "To bring off, as Stifter does, a story of this kind, with its breathtaking risks of appalling banalities, is a great feat. What might so easily have been a tear-jerking melodrama becomes in his hands a quiet and beautiful parable about the relation of people to places, of man to nature." The story's power, according to author

Susan Choi Susan Choi (born 1969) is an American novelist. Early life and education Choi was born in South Bend, Indiana to a Korean father and a Jewish mother. She attended public schools. When she was nine years old, her parents divorced. She and her m ...

, arises not from danger, but from "catastrophe's quiet avoidance: from the series of small miracles by which the children survive".

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born ...

praised Stifter as a "friend of reality" and "the greatest landscape painter in literature" for his avoidance of generalities and impressions in favor of sensory details. In an unpublished review of an English translation she praised "the strange, innocent wisdom of Stifter's work". It was translated into English in 1945 by

Elizabeth Mayer Elizabeth Wolff Mayer (1884 – 14 March 1970) was a German-born American translator and editor, closely associated with W. H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, and other writers and musicians. After emigrating to the United States in the 1940s ...

and Marianne Moore, re-issued by

Pushkin Press Pushkin Press is a British-based publishing house dedicated to publishing novels, essays, memoirs and children's books. The London-based company was founded in 1997 and is notable for publishing authors such as Stefan Zweig, Marcel Aymé, Anta ...

in 2001 and the '' New York Review of Books'' in 2008. An earlier translation from 1914 by

Lee M. Hollander Lee Milton Hollander (November 8, 1880 – October 19, 1972) was an American philologist who specialized in Old Norse studies. Hollander was for many years head of the Department of Germanic Languages at the University of Texas at Austin. ...

is in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

. It has been adapted to film and TV a number of times: in 1949 as the film '' Mountain Crystal'' (directed by Harald Reinl); in 1954 as the TV movie ''Bergkristall'' (director:

Albert Lippert Albert Lippert (1901-1978) was a German stage, television and film actor. He was the manager of the Deutsches Schauspielhaus between 1948 and 1955. Selected filmography * '' Cruiser Emden'' (1932) * '' A Prussian Love Story'' (1938) * '' Liberat ...

); in 1974 as the TV movie ''Bergkristall'' by Paul Stockmeier; in 1999 as the TV movie ''Cristallo di rocca - Una storia di Natale'' by

Maurizio Zaccaro Maurizio Zaccaro (born 8 May 1952 in Milan, Italy) is an Italian film director, cinematographer, film editor, and screenwriter. Biography Maurizio Zaccaro was born in Milan. After ending his study at the Milan Film School (1977) he took on wor ...

; and in 2004 as the film ' by Joseph Vilsmaier.

References

External links

, contained in ''The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 08''), tr. Lee M. Hollander, 1914.
''Rock Crystal''
at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

(scanned book original edition), contained i
''The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 08''
tr. Lee M. Hollander, 1914. * Works by Adalbert Stifter 1845 novels Austrian novellas Austrian novels adapted into films Christmas novels NYRB Classics {{1850s-novel-stub