Berthold Auerbach's letters to Jakob Auerbach rank among the most important sources in German-Jewish literature. Over a span of more than 50 years (1830-1882), the writer confided to his friend and cousin, a Jewish educator, about the events of his personal life, which were inextricably bound up with the problems of Jewish emancipation. Auerbach's letters also paint a vivid image of his struggles as a Jew to secure an uncontested place in the literary and liberal political networks of the time. Jakob Auerbach published the first edition of the letters in 1884, together with an introduction by Friedrich Spielhagen, but it has never been reissued until now. This new edition, which includes commentary and indexes of persons and subjects, does justice to the renewed interest in this correspondence, fueled in part by two monographs (Kerstin Sarnecki 2006, Hermann Kinder 2011). The original Gothic script has been updated with Antiqua and, as a result, the digital version is readily searchable.

Autorentext

Hans Otto Horch, RWTH Aachen.

Zusammenfassung

"Die Brieflektüre macht diese Spannung als Teil eines Lebens erfahrbar, in dem es keine Theorie ohne Praxis gibt. Hans Otto Horch, der hervorragende Kenner der deutsch-jüdischen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte, macht dieses Lektüreerlebnis nun neu möglich und bereichert es um einen detaillierten und philologisch vorbildlichen Kommentar, der teilweise schwer zugängliche Quellen und heute unbekannte Personen erschliest, Querverweise herstellt und über kulturgeschichtliche Hintergründe informiert."
Anja Oesterhelt in: Germanistik 59/1-2 (2018), 280-281