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, New York) 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, an editor in chief 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 most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Work

He translated into German 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 ...

, Oscar Wilde 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 worl ...

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 Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the ...

and

, texts by Jules Laforgue 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'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

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Blei, Franz 19th-century Austrian dramatists and playwrights Austrian essayists Austrian translators Translators to German Austrian critics Austrian editors Austrian Jews Austrian publishers (people) 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 20th-century publishers (people) 19th-century essayists 20th-century essayists 20th-century Austrian dramatists and playwrights Austrian male dramatists and playwrights