Adalbert Stifter,  Translated by Kristofor Minta
2024

“Never, never in my whole life was I so shaken, shaken by awe and majesty, as in those two minutes.” Adalbert Stifter, legend of German letters, stood on a rooftop in Vienna one morning in 1842 and was transported to another world. He and all who witnessed the total solar eclipse that day were moved in ways perhaps unavailable to moderns—orphaned on the other side of the scientific and industrial revolutions underway in Stifter’s time. The Solar Eclipse of July 8th, 1842 may revive for us some necessary dread and humility before the sheer scale of nature, but can also serve to reconnect us with our forebears, whose hearts and minds, after all, were just as our own.

Adalbert Stifter's impact on German letters cannot be overstated, an avowed influence on Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Thomas Mann, Thomas Bernhard, and W.G. Sebald. “Die Sonnenfinsternis am 8. Juli 1842” is a Germanophone classic, particularly dear to the Viennese, who have placed a historical marker at the site of the viewing. That same year, Stifter’s novella Abdias was published to great acclaim, opening the door to a nearly 30 year literary career. All his work is marked by a close attention to natural phenomena coupled with a kind of world-weariness, which, in conjunction, achieve both deep beauty and moments of disorienting cosmic horror. Burdened by illness and depression, Stifter died by his own hand in 1868.

Hand set in Aldus and Janson type, and printed letterpress. Sewn and bound by hand and laid into a letterpress printed dust jacket. Includes the artwork Die Sehnsucht nach Ruhe bedarf nicht des Lebens / The longing for calm does not require life | Portrait of Adalbert Stifter by Herbert Pföstl as the frontispiece. 24 pages. 5.625 x 7.875 inches.

Edition of 150 copies
$40