{"product_id":"1826-german-novelists","title":"1826 GERMAN NOVELISTS. Edgar Allan Poe Inspiration Dark German Fantasy \u0026 Horror Novels","description":"\u003cp\u003eThomas Roscoe’s four-volume anthology is one of the earliest comprehensive efforts to introduce English-speaking readers to the rich spectrum of German fiction, combining works from the medieval folk tradition and Enlightenment literature with the emerging Romantic movement. Many of the works printed here were being made available to an English reading audience for the very first time. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd Roscoe had an eye for the fantastic; though works of the macabre and unusual are sprinkled throughout, volume three is almost entirely dedicated to the pioneering dark fantasy and uncanny tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann, including early translations of classics like \"The Sandman\" and \"The Elementary Spirit,\" alongside supernatural works by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and Johann Karl August Musäus. By compiling these translated fables, ghost stories, and psychological horror, Roscoe, with a bit of help from Mary Shelley's \u003cem\u003eFrankenstein\u003c\/em\u003e, would help spark the 19th-century British obsession with German Gothicism, directly influencing Victorian speculative fiction.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe works selected by Roscoe also played a major role in shaping a young Edgar Allan Poe’s literary development and helped bring about the emergence of American Gothic fiction. Literary historians debate whether Poe could read German fluently, and have suggested he relied heavily on early English translations and anthologies published in the 1820s, including Roscoe’s, to absorb German Romanticism and the supernatural. Poe would also review Roscoe's literary translations when writing for \u003cem\u003eThe Broadway Journal Review\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor an interesting snippet on Poe and the 1820's import of German gothic novels to America, see \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.eapoe.org\/papers\/misc1900\/pcetac02.htm\"\u003ehere\u003c\/a\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eScholars have noted that Poe's connection to Hoffmann, again, heavily represented here, is especially pronounced in Poe's use of the doppelgänger and split psychology. Poe’s famous double-identity motif in \u003ci\u003e\"William Wilson\"\u003c\/i\u003e directly mirrors Hoffmann’s exploration of the alter ego found in tales like \u003ci\u003e\"The Devil's Elixirs\"\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003e\"The Sandman\"\u003c\/i\u003e. Poe even adopted the framing concept of \"fantasy pieces\" (\u003ci\u003ePhantasiestücke\u003c\/i\u003e) from Hoffmann for his own writing. Similarly, Poe explicitly cited Tieck in his critical essays, drawing heavily on Tieck's aesthetic framework, psychological tension, and concept of the \"arabesque\" when assembling his own 1840 collection \u003ci\u003eTales of the Grotesque and Arabesque\u003c\/i\u003e. Poe also frequently praised Fouqué's balance of imagination and romance in his literary reviews.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo pronounced was the influence that American critics often accused Poe of merely copying \"German horror\" and plagiarizing the Gothic conventions found in popular anthologies like Roscoe's. Poe famously pushed back against these accusations in the preface to \u003ci\u003eTales of the Grotesque and Arabesque\u003c\/i\u003e, writing, \u003ci\u003e\"If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul.\"\u003c\/i\u003e Despite Poe's insistence on his original psychological vision, scholars generally agree that English translated collections like Roscoe’s 1826 set provided the vital raw materials, tropes, and narrative techniques that Poe transformed into modern psychological horror.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEach volume inscribed, \"Charles E. Dudley. London Apl 1837.\" Charles Edward Dudley, served as a United States Senator from New York and Mayor of Albany. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRoscoe, Thomas [ed.] The German Novelists: Tales Selected from Ancient and Modern Authors in that Language: From the Earliest Period Down to the Close of the Eighteenth Century. Translated from the Originals: with Critical and Biographical Notices. In Four Volumes. London. Henry Colburn. 1826. 413 + 405 + 374 + 374pp.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVery good, near fine in original superb calf bindings with raised bands, bi-colored contrasting spine labels, tooled compartments with blind tooled foredges and matching marbled endpapers and foredges. Textually superbly crisp and clena. Some very minor rubbing to extremities with just the slightest nib in the leather here and there on the edges. Exceptionally shelf-handsome.  \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Specs Fine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51328573243428,"sku":null,"price":1250.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/specsfinebooks.com\/products\/1826-german-novelists","provider":"Specs Fine Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}