Description
A German first edition, first printing of Der Golem by Gustav Meyrink, published by Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig in 1915, with lithograph illustrations by Hugo Steine. A near fine copy without inscriptions, boards bound in the publisher’s original marbled paper, leather bound spine with gilt tooling and titling, some small closed tears to the head of the spine and rubbing to the foot, bumping to the corners of the boards and rubbing to the edges, a green top stain to the text block, toning to the fore-edge and bottom edge of text block, with green end papers and an Ex Libris label to the front paste-down, the second front free end paper with circular logo of the publishing house showing Romulus and Remus being suckled by the Capitoline she-wolf.
First published in book form by Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig, in 1915, Gustav Meyrink’s Der Golem is a landmark of supernatural and modernist fiction. In Prague’s Jewish ghetto, gem-cutter Athanasius Pernath becomes entangled in dreams, lost memories and the recurring apparition of the Golem, embodying the quarter’s collective fears. Mysticism, Kabbalah and psychological unease blur reality throughout.
