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Post by dem on May 5, 2008 16:27:55 GMT
My favourite story from .... H.P.Lovecraft's Book of Horror (one I haven't encountered before) is 'The Spider' by Hanns Heinz Ewers. Creepy as fuck. (Valcour & Krueger, 1977) First Unexpurgated publication in forty eight years - three tales of the ultra-cruel Mamaloi
The White Maiden
Tomatoe Sauce The Baron's post on the Wheatley novels thread reminded me of this. My first exposure to Ewers was via his stomach-wrenching The Execution Of Damiens in Pan Horror 3. I didn't even realise it was based on a factual occurence at the time. Sadly, I've yet to get my hands on any of his novels (Haining uses an extract from Vampire in his Black Magic Omnibus #2), and the only other short story which turns up with any regularity is The Spider, his grim reworking of Erckmann-Chatrian's The Invisible Eye. And then there's the extraordinary Bloodand Tomatoe Sauce in particular. After vivid accounts of cock and bullfight attrocities, we are treated to the main spectacle: two men hacking each other to pieces before an avid audience, at the forefront of which stands a vampiric English clergyman nicknamed 'The Pope'. So, if you like Charles Birkin, try this guy. David Lindsay certainly has, if his brutal novel Heat From Another Sun is anything to go by. **** Baron VordenbergSee 'Voices of the Abyss: The Dedalus Book of German Decadence' (Dedalus 1994) edited by Ray Furness for a good-sized selection of lengthy extracts translated from Ewer's 1911 novel 'Alraune' - it really whets the appetite for the whole novel, very twisted stuff! **** Mark Samuels
Foreward: Don Webb
The Life and Times of Hanns Heinz Ewers: Stephen E. Flowers
C.3.3.
The Water Corpse
The White Maiden
From the Diary of an Orange Tree
Tomato Sauce
Fairyland
Mamaloi
The Spider
The Box of Counters
The Execution of Damiens
Published Runa-Raven Press, 2000 |
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Post by sean on May 5, 2008 16:42:25 GMT
Cool... Now I know what to look out for!
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Post by sean on May 9, 2008 13:21:34 GMT
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Post by Craig Herbertson on May 9, 2008 14:03:40 GMT
good old Violet books!
Interesting fellow that Ewers. I read an awful lot of Crowley but not him
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Post by sean on May 31, 2008 11:08:17 GMT
I read the Ewers story in Pan 3 last night... blimey!
(Blimey in a good way...)
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Post by redbrain on May 31, 2008 15:18:44 GMT
I read the Ewers story in Pan 3 last night... blimey! (Blimey in a good way...) I'm currently (well not this moment) reading The Spider on the tube.  |
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Post by timothymayer on Jul 6, 2008 21:35:47 GMT
I was able to find a 1920's edition of both THE MANDRAKE and THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE in academic libraries. Each had the most beautiful illustrations. I'm still looking for THE VAMPIRE. I suppose a number of his other books have made it into English.
There's a Yahoo! group dedicated to him, but it seems idle at the moment.
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Post by anarchistbanjo on Aug 2, 2008 0:19:50 GMT
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Post by sean on Aug 3, 2008 11:47:26 GMT
The piece on Poe was pretty interesting.
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Post by anarchistbanjo on Aug 12, 2008 0:32:17 GMT
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Post by sean on Aug 12, 2008 11:31:27 GMT
I'll have to print these off to give them the attention they deserve.
If all the Ewers stuff is public domain, you should maybe consider putting together and printing a collection of your translations. I'm guessing it would reach a small, but enthusiastic audience.
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Post by anarchistbanjo on Aug 13, 2008 10:44:58 GMT
Kessinger Books is putting out some reprints. They are putting out an early version of "Edgar Allan Poe" that sells for $16.95 Here is the link www.kessinger.net/index.phpI've never seen it but obviously my translation is better and cheaper!  They are also putting out a reprint of "The Sorcers Apprentice" that is selling for $31.95. This does have the cool illustrations. This should be hard evidence that the crows are beginning to fight over the carcass. In Europe Wilifried Kugel did renew the European Copyright for Ewers material. The book put out by Runa-Raven press shown in an above post is in conjuction with Kugel. The United States has its own copyright laws. Simply put if it was printed before 1923 it has passed into the public domain. Here is a link for those wishing to check up on that: www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/The question remains, then why have we not seen English translations of "Alraune" and "Vampire" by S. Guy Endore? They do exist even if they are bad in my opinion. I suspect the answer is that there is a pissing contest between the Endore's crowd and the Kugel crowd. It is widely thought that Endore's book an "American Werewolf in Paris" was a blatant ripoff of "Vampire". The Endore's crowd has renewed their copyright and not releasing it to Kugel. These books are caught in that fog where English translations exist so no one wants to tackle it. But these English Translations are not allowed. I do hope to deal with the Kugel crowd sometime in the future so I can openly work on material printed after 1923, specifically "Fundvogel" I am going to translate that book come hell or highwater but "Alraune" and "Vampire" need translating first. For the present I prefer to strengthen my hand and let them come to me. Staying with material published prior to 1923 works since even "Vampire" is in the public domain here in the United States. At least the Original German text is and that is what I am translating. I have never read "Vampire" in English or German. My German copy in on order. I did read "Alraune" in English twenty years ago but no longer have the copy. I am working entirely from the German text. There are two types of horror. The horror like Stephan King that I can't stand and the horror like in Peter Saxon's novels. What is the difference? You love the horror in Peter Saxon's novels! There is a love-fear relationship that is exquisite! That is what Ewers brings to horror. That is what Endor's translations are missing in my opinion. He took a Saxon type work and turned it into a grotesque Kinglike work. The illustrations by Mahlone didn't help either. They are beautiful but ghastly. In the translation work that I do my hope is to bring out the "love-fear" relationship that was originally intended. |
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Post by sean on Aug 13, 2008 11:44:14 GMT
That's the problem with these copyright / public domain pissing contests... they often ensure that the work the various parties are fussing over ends up sinking into obscurity 'cos no-one can be bothered with all the hassle. Add the fact that it is translations that we're talking about just compounds the problems, I guess.
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Post by anarchistbanjo on Aug 13, 2008 12:10:16 GMT
Chuckle,  That's about it! Luckily I'm an American and can legaly translate material that is in the Public Domain in the United States. If I tried to market anything in Europe there might be problems. Here in the States it flies just fine. That's what Kessinger is doing with their reprints. I do hope to be able to work with the Kugel crowd at a later time. For the present I am simply translating for the pleasure and putting it out freely on the internet. I own the copyright to my own material. It is considered a derivative work. Not even the Kugel crowd can use my translations without my approval! ;D A nice interesting horror story of its own! Oh, I almost forgot. The German that Ewers wrote all his stuff in is obsolete and not even the Germans want to read it anymore. It sounds funny like Shakespeare or Poe! Many of the verbs use a tense that is no longer in use. They are not even in German-English dictionaries so there are lots of words that have not been in use for over fifty years. |
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Post by lobolover on Aug 26, 2008 21:49:02 GMT
If anyone would translate Mamaloi and C.3.3. i'd be infinetely gratefull.
I actualy am capable and willing to transcribe and translate and put on your web my trans of Tomato Sauce and some others from the chapbook I have.On a sidenote,ive also the book "Alraune" at home or a very good price.Thank you for helping with the problem of Ewers avalibility where even the H.H.Ewers society failed.
A question-which o the stories you have can be considered his horror/ horrible work ?
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