Showing posts with label Margarete Böhme. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Margarete Böhme. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

The Holocaust, Heinrich Himmler, Jodi Picoult, and The Diary of a Lost Girl

I am continuing to research The Diary of a Lost Girl, Margarete Böhme's controversial 1905 novel which served as the basis for the equally controversial 1929 film starring Louise Brooks. In 2015, I plan on issuing a revised and expanded print edition of my 2010 "Louise Brooks edition" of The Diary of a Lost Girl which will include new findings. Among them are these two items.

Heinrich Himmler, one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and one of the individuals most directly responsible for the Holocaust, is known to have read Böhme's novel in 1920, 15 years after it was first published and three years before he joined the Nazi party. That's according to two books on Himmler which I have just come across.

Both Bradley F. Smith's Heinrich Himmler: A Nazi in the Making (Hoover Institution Press, 1971) and Peter Longerich's Heinrich Himmler (Oxford University Press, 2012) record that the then 20 year old student read Böhme's The Diary of a Lost Soul (an alternate title). Himmler kept a record of his reading, and notes having read Böhme's book in March 1920, while in Munich and Ingolstadt. At the time, according to Longerich, Himmler's reading was largely novels and stories "concerned with love, erotic attraction, and the battle of the sexes."

According to Smith, The Diary of a Lost Soul caused Himmler to "reexamine his attitudes" and doubt "the scorn he usually poured on those who had wandered from the path of virtue." It was a book, Himmler noted, "that offers insight into dreadful human tragedies and makes one look at many a whore with different eyes." Afterwords, he went on to read other not-unrelated books, including Henrik Ibsens's A Doll's House.

I also just recently learned that The Diary of a Lost Girl received a shout-out in The Storyteller, a 2013 novel from author Jodi Picoult. The Storyteller, a #1 New York Times bestseller, is based on an incident which took place during the Holocaust. In one scene, a key character is preparing to flee, and is gathering important possessions.



I contacted Picoult, and asked about her character's mention of The Diary of a Lost Girl. Picoult wrote back, "I was looking for a book of the time period that would have been something Minka might have read - so I did a little digging for some popular titles of the time!"

Picoult's choice is apt. Böhme was an especially popular author, especially with women, and apparently with somewhat curious males like Himmler.

From the time it was first published in 1905, The Diary of a Lost Girl continued to sell and remained in print in various editions all the way into the early 1930's, when it was driven out of print by right wing German groups upset with its story. (Himmler read an edition published in 1917.) Along with the anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front and works by Thomas Mann, Böhme's The Diary of a Lost Girl was one of the dozen bestselling books in Germany in the period from 1900 to 1939. It is believed to have sold more than 1.2 million copies. The book is back in print in Germany and the United States.

Pictured here is a newly acquired edition of Böhme's bestseller. This rare softcover copy was published in 1919.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Book signing for the Louise Brooks edition of The Diary of a Lost Girl

I will be signing copies of my "Louise Brooks edition" of Margarete Bohme's The Diary of a Lost Girl (PandorasBox Press) on Saturday, March 23 from 2 to 5 pm at the first annual Noe Valley Authors Festival. Please join me an other local authors at this special event.

The event takes place at St. Philip the Apostle Parish Hall, 725 Diamond Street, between 24th and Elizabeth Streets, in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. A bit more about the event can be found on the San Francisco Chronicle website at http://events.sfgate.com/san_francisco_ca/events/show/315357843-thomas-gladysz-book-signing

I will be happy to speak about the book and my continuing research into the amazing life of this lost classic. Feel free to ask me about the book being banned from coming into Canada, about it being written about in Sigmund Freud's journal of psychoanalysis, or about what I think is its very earliest American newspaper review - in a San Francisco newspaper! Here, for example, is one of my other new finds - a newspaper article about a lawsuit filed by Bohme in the wake of the torrents of negative publicity she received as a result of having published this controversial and contested bestseller. Variations of this article ran in newspapers around the world. This particular clipping is from a newspaper in Perth, Australia. 

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Another Brooks related street name

A while back, this blog ran a post about a street in the suburbs of Paris named after actress Louise Brooks. More recently, we have also noticed that a street in the German town of Husum was named after Margarete Böhme, the German author who penned The Diary of a Lost Girl. Louise Brooks starred in the 1929 film made from the book.

Böhme was born and raised in Husum, a small town in Northern Germany dubbed “the grey town by the grey sea” by its best known resident, the novelist and poet Theodor Storm. The house in which she was raised in Husum bears a commemorative plaque. And in 2009, a street in a new housing development in the north of the city was named after the author. More about Böhme and her connections with Husum can be found here in a local article from January 2013. (I wasn't able to use Google maps / street view to acquire an image of the street sign, as I had with the Paris sign.)

But what's more, earlier this month a stage play adaption of The Diary of a Lost Girl was once again put on in Husum by a group of women who have been regularly staging the work. Read more about that in another local article from Nordfriesen. Pictured below, the theater group 5plus1, performing Diary.


Tuesday, October 2, 2012

The Diary of a Lost Girl: A brief history of a banned book

Every year since 1982, the American reading public observes Banned Books Week. This year, as in the past, hundreds of libraries and bookstores draw attention to the ongoing problem of censorship by hosting events and by creating displays of challenged works. It’s all about creating awareness.

In 2010, the Louise Brooks Society did it's part by helping bring a once censored work back into print. The book is The Diary of a Lost Girl. It's by a turn of the last century German writer few today have heard of, Margarete Böhme. Her book, a once-controversial bestseller, had been out of print in the United States for more than 100 years.

Though little known today, The Diary of a Lost Girl was a literary phenomenon in the early 20th century. It is considered by scholars of German literature to be one of the best-selling books of its time.

The Diary of a Lost Girl is an unlikely work of social protest. It’s also a tragedy – in 1909, a newspaper in New Zealand called it “the saddest of modern books.” In 1907, the English writer Hall Caine described it as the "poignant story of a great-hearted girl who kept her soul alive amidst all the mire that surrounded her poor body." Many years later, a contemporary scholar called it “Perhaps the most notorious and certainly the commercially most successful autobiographical narrative of the early twentieth century.”

The book tells the story of Thymian, a young woman forced by circumstance into a life of prostitution. Her story goes something like this. Seduced by her Father’s business associate, the teenage Thymian conceives a child which she is forced to give up; she is then cast out of her home, scorned by society, and ends up in a reform school – from which she escapes and by twists of fate hesitantly turns to life as a high-class escort. Prostitution is the only means of survival available to her. If its story sounds familiar, it likely because the book was the basis for the 1929 German movie of the same name. That silent film, still shown in theaters around the world, stars Louise Brooks.

The Diary of a Lost Girl, editions then and now

The author of The Diary of a Lost Girl, Margarete Böhme (1867-1939), was a progressive minded writer who meant to expose the hypocrisy of society and the very un-Christian behavior of some of its leading members. She also meant to show-up the double standards by which women of all ages suffer. Böhme’s frank treatment of sexuality (by the standards of the day) only added fuel to the fire of outrage which greeted the book in some quarters.

First published in Germany in 1905 as Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, Böhme’s book proved an enduring work – at least for a while and despite attacks by critics and social groups. The book was translated into 14 languages, and was reviewed and discussed across Europe. It inspired a popular sequel brought about by a flood of letters to the author, a controversial stage play banned in some German cities, a parody, lawsuits, two silent films - each of which were in turn censored, and a score of imitators.

The book confronts readers with the story of a likeable young women forced into a life of degradation. The complicity of her family – and by extension society – in her downward turn is provocative. However, Thymian – a truly endearing character and a heroine till the end, refuses to be coarsened by her experiences. She also refuses to let others define her - she defines herself. At the time, Böhme’s book helped open a dialogue on issues around the treatment of women.

In 1907, when the book was translated into English, its British publisher placed an advertisement in newspapers. The ads proclaimed Böhme’s work “The Book that Has Stirred the Hearts of the German People,” but somewhat defensively added “It is outspoken to a degree, but the great moral lesson it conveys is the publishers’ apology for venturing to reproduce this human document.”

In response to a review of the book in the Manchester Guardian, the Rev. J.K. Maconachie of the Manchester Association Against State Regulation of Vice wrote a surprising letter to the editor. He stated, “The appearance in Germany of this remarkable book, together with the stir it has made there and the fact that its author is a woman, betoken the uprising which has taken place in recent years amongst German women against the evils and injustice which the book reveals. . . . It may be hoped that discriminating circulation of The Diary of a Lost One will help many here to realize, in the forceful words of your reviewer, ‘the horror of setting aside one section of human beings for the use of another.’”

Back in Germany, the same sorts of groups which objected to the book also objected to the two films made from it. The first, from 1918, is considered lost, but we know from articles of the time that it was withdrawn from circulation because of its controversial story. The second film, which starred Louise Brooks, has come down in censored form.

As records from 1929 show, various groups including a German morality association, a national organization for young women, a national organization of Protestant girl’s boarding schools, and even the governor in Lower Silesia all voiced their objections to aspects of the film. As with the book, these groups objected to various key scenes. Each found the work to be demoralizing.

At the end of the Twenties, The Diary of a Lost Girl was still in print and was still being reissued in countries across Europe. It had by then sold more than 1,200,000 copies – ranking it among the 15 bestselling books of the era. Twenty five years after it was first published, however, Böhme's “terribly impressive book, full of accusations against society” was still considered a provocation. That’s why, just a very few years later at the beginning of the Nazi era, conservative groups still unsettled by its damning indictment of society deliberately drove it out-of-print.

In 1988, after decades of obscurity, a facsimile of the special 1907 edition was published in Germany. It was followed in 1995 by a small paperback which featured Louise Brooks on the cover. The recent "Louise Brooks edition" reprint of the original English language translation, also with Brooks on the cover and with some 40 pages of introductory and related material, appeared in 2010.

The impetus behind publishing a new edition of The Diary of a Lost Girl was about creating awareness. More importantly, it gives voice to a story which critics had long tried to silence. For additional background, check out these articles on Deutsche Welle and RTV Slovenia.


The 2012 Banned Books Week runs through October 6. The Diary of a Lost Girl is available through Indiebound and Amazon.com and other select bookstores and libraries.

Friday, July 27, 2012

The German Bestseller in the Late Nineteenth Century

A just published book, The German Bestseller in the Late Nineteenth Century (Camden House, 2012), contains a reference to the "Louise Brooks edition" of Margarete Bohme's The Diary of a Lost Girl. The book is a collection of essays on the literature of the time.

One of the essays included in The German Bestseller in the Late Nineteenth Century is titled "Taking Sex to Market." It is by Elizabeth Boa, a UK scholar described as "One of the most respected Germanists of her generation." Boa is a scholar of modern German literature and who has written on Frank Wedekind and Franz Kafka and others.

In the footnotes to her essay, Boa references the "Louise Brooks edition" of  Bohme's bestselling book, Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (translated into English as The Diary of a Lost One, aka The Diary of a Lost Girl). It made my day when Boa described this edition as "splendid." (See below.)


The "Louise Brooks edition" of Bohme's The Diary of a Lost Girl is also included in the bibliography of this new book, which I am looking forward to getting a hold of.  

More info on "Louise Brooks edition" of The Diary of a Lost Girl can be found here. And here are a few of the other reviews of the book which have appeared since it was published in 2010.

"Long relegated to the shadows, Margarete Böhme's 1905 novel, The Diary of a Lost Girl has at last made a triumphant return. In reissuing the rare 1907 English translation of Böhme's German text, Thomas Gladysz makes an important contribution to film history, literature, and, in as much as Böhme told her tale with much detail and background contemporary to the day, sociology and history. He gives us the original novel, his informative introduction, and many beautiful and rare illustrations. This reissue is long overdue, and in all ways it is a volume of uncommon merit." -- Richard Buller, author of A Beautiful Fairy Tale: The Life of Actress Lois Moran

"Gladysz provides an authoritative series of essays that tell us about the author, the notoriety of her work (which was first published in 1905), and its translation to the screen. Production stills, advertisements, and other ephemera illustrate these introductory chapters. In today’s parlance this would be called a 'movie tie-in edition,' but that seems a rather glib way to describe yet another privately published work that reveals an enormous amount of research — and passion." -- Leonard Maltin

"Read today, it's a fascinating time-trip back to another age, and yet remains compelling. As a bonus, Gladysz richly illustrates the text with stills of Brooks from the famous film." -- Jack Garner, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

"Thomas Gladysz is the leading authority on all matters pertaining to the legendary Louise Brooks. We owe him a debt of gratitude for bringing the groundbreaking novel, The Diary of a Lost Girl - the basis of Miss Brooks's classic 1929 film - back from obscurity. It remains a fascinating work." -- Lon Davis, author of Silent Lives


Monday, November 28, 2011

Save 25% off the Louise Brooks Edition of DIARY OF A LOST GIRL

Thru December 15th - save 25% off the Louise Brooks Edition of The Diary of a Lost Girl, by Margarete Böhme. This is the book which served as the basis for the 1929 Louise Brooks film of the same name. This sensational bestseller has long been unavailable in English, and only came back into print through the efforts of the Louise Brooks Society. Get a copy today!
 
Visit http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/LBS1 to purchase the book, and to save, use coupon code BUYMYBOOK305 at check-out.

The 1929 Louise Brooks film, Diary of a Lost Girl, is based on a bestselling book first published in Germany in 1905. Though little known today, the book was a sensation at the beginning of the 20th century. Controversy, spirited debate, and even lawsuits followed its publication. By the end of the Twenties, it had sold more than 1,200,000 copies – ranking it among the bestselling books of its time.

Was it – as many believed – the real-life diary of a young woman forced by circumstance into a life of prostitution? Or a sensational and clever fake, one of the first fake novels of its kind? This contested work – a work of unusual historical significance as well as literary sophistication – inspired a sequel, a play, a parody, a score of imitators, and two silent films. The best remembered of these is the often revived G.W. Pabst film starring Louise Brooks.

This new edition of the original English language translation brings this notable work back into print after more than 100 years. And what's more, this special "Louise Brooks Edition" includes three dozen illustrations and a 20 page introduction by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society, detailing the book's remarkable history and relationship to the acclaimed silent film. Find out more at http://www.pandorasbox.com/diary.html 

Praise for the Louise Brooks Edition of THE DIARY OF A LOST GIRL

"Gladysz provides an authoritative series of essays that tell us about the author, the notoriety of her work (which was first published in 1905), and its translation to the screen. Production stills, advertisements, and other ephemera illustrate these introductory chapters. In today’s parlance this would be called a 'movie tie-in edition,' but that seems a rather glib way to describe yet another privately published work that reveals an enormous amount of research — and passion." -- Leonard Maltin

"Read today, it's a fascinating time-trip back to another age, and yet remains compelling. As a bonus, Gladysz richly illustrates the text with stills of Brooks from the famous film." -- Jack Garner, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

"Thomas Gladysz is the leading authority on all matters pertaining to the legendary Louise Brooks. We owe him a debt of gratitude for bringing the groundbreaking novel, The Diary of a Lost Girl - the basis of Miss Brooks's classic 1929 film - back from obscurity. It remains a fascinating work." -- Lon Davis, author of Silent Lives
 
"Long relegated to the shadows, Margarete Böhme's 1905 novel, The Diary of a Lost Girl has at last made a triumphant return. In reissuing the rare 1907 English translation of Böhme's German text, Thomas Gladysz makes an important contribution to film history, literature, and, in as much as Böhme told her tale with much detail and background contemporary to the day, sociology and history. He gives us the original novel, his informative introduction, and many beautiful and rare illustrations. This reissue is long overdue, and in all ways it is a volume of uncommon merit." -- Richard Buller, author of A Beautiful Fairy Tale: The Life of Actress Lois Moran

"Most certainly a book for all you Louise Brooks fans out there!! And silent cinema fans in general as well." -- Bristol Silents (UK) newsletter

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

New book about Louise Brooks ?

Seemingly, there is a new book about Louise Brooks. Or at least it is about her in part. Or at least her name is in the title. And, it was printed recently.

The book is called Ziegfeld Follies: Ziegfeld Girls, Barbara Stanwyck, Eve Arden, Lucia Pamela, Jeanne Eagels, Bessie Love, Paulette Goddard, Louise Brooks. It was published last month, is 166 pages, and can be found on amazon.com No author is given. That's a bad sign.

I haven't seen a copy of the book as of yet - though I do plan on ordering one. (Somebody has got to.) The product description offered on amazon is kinda weird. It notes that there are chapters devoted to Ziegfeld Girls, Barbara Stanwyck, Eve Arden, Lucia Pamela, Jeanne Eagels, Bessie Love, Paulette Goddard, Louise Brooks, Marion Davies, Olive Thomas, Joan Blondell, Ann Pennington, Mae Murray, Florenz Ziegfeld, Nita Naldi, Susan Fleming, Iris Adrian, Anna Held, Bird Millman, Tamara Geva, Dorothy Mackaill, Billie Dove, Paulette Duval, Yvonne Hughes, Claire Dodd, Irene Hayes, Cecile Arnold, Jean Howard, Helen Gallagher. 

It then offers an excerpt, which seems to be lifted from Wikipedia. The informational url found in the product description takes you to the Wikipedia page for Louise Brooks. Hmmm.
If I were to hazard a guess, I would think this "data-mined" book is made up of little more than material gathered from various websites. Oh boy. But that is just a guess. One never knows until one has the thing in hand. The publisher is Books LLC. According to their website, they are based in Memphis, Tennessee. Their webpage for this book is http://booksllc.net/book.cfm?id=3459533

I do believe that this "publisher" is the same entity which also recently released a version of Margarete Bohme's The Diary of a Lost One on the world. I have a copy of that - and can state that it is a very poor thing indeed. The product description found on amazon.com and on their website begins "The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text...." Well, that's an understatement. Doesn't i"numerous typos or missing text" make you feel like you simply MUST have a copy?

For better or for worse, we are likely at the dawn of a new age of such books. 

When I prepared my own edition of Bohme's The Diary of a Lost Girl, I was very careful to make sure the text of my book was the best it could be. I spent nearly a month going over the manuscript again and and again fixing typos and making corrections. And, to give it added value, I also added a 35 page introduction and more than 3 dozen vintage illustrations. My edition of Bohme's book can be found at http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-diary-of-a-lost-girl-(louise-brooks-edition)/11256621. Plus, what makes my edition so superior is that it looks a heck of a lot better than the above two books. And, it has Louise Brooks on the cover. What more could you ask for?


I am in the process of getting the book into various online "distribution channels" and even select brick-and-mortar bookstores. It should be available around the world on the various  amazon.com sites sometime soon, as well as Barnes & Noble, etc.... However, the best source for the book is direct from the printer at lulu.com

Friday, June 4, 2010

Piracy and The Diary of a Lost Girl

Today, the pirating of movies, music, and even books is a major concern. But back in the early years of the 20th century, when Margarete Böhme wrote the book which became the 1929 Louise Brooks film, Diary of a Lost Girl, piracy was also a problem.

Böhme's book was a huge bestseller in Germany - a phenomenon really. It sold more than 100,000 copies in less than two years. It was so popular that it was translated into 14 languages and was published across Europe - from England and France to Hungary and Russia. There was such demand for the book that there were even pirated editions in at least two countries, The Netherlands and Poland.

In The Netherlands, the book was retitled and published as Thymian, the name of the "lost girl" and the character played by Louise Brooks. This unauthorized translation was issued by Albert de Lange, an otherwise reputable publisher. From what I was able to find out, the translation was by the noted poet Hillegonda van Uildriks, alias Gonne Loman-van Uildriks (1863-1921). Now remembered as a translator, Uildriks was the first to translate Jane Austen into Dutch. (She also translated Robert Louis Stevenson and H.G. Wells, among others.)

Böhme's book was published in Dutch as Thymian, with the subtitle "From the life of a fallen woman." The cover pictured above is unusual in its visual representation of the book's heroine. (Image courtesy of Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren.)

Böhme's book was also published in Poland in both authorized and unauthorized editions. I was able to uncover an interesting advertisement for the authorized translation which references the pirated version.

The book was issued in Poland under the title Pamiętnik Kobiety Upadłej. This 1906 advertisement notes “Every mature man or women should read this book.” Also, it warns against the unauthorized edition, and notes that the book is available in all bookshops. The authorized Polish edition was translated by Felicya Nossig, who would later translate Selma Lagerlöf, Josef Conrad, and other writers of note. Nossig is noted in the advertisement. (For those keeping track, the unauthorized translation was titled Pamiętnik Uwiedzionej.)

If any readers of this blog have any early editions of Böhme's book in any language other than German, I would appreciate hearing from you. The information in this post comes from my introduction to the new "Louise Brooks edition" to The Diary of a Lost Girl. More info about the book can be found hereBuy a copy or check out sample pages and more at Lulu.com
Powered By Blogger