HANS HENNY JAHNN: THE WOODEN SHIP [1969].

Description

We present the first Polish edition of the novel “The Wooden Ship” by Hans Henny Jahnn (1894-1959) – German writer, playwright, musicologist, organ builder, as well as horse breeder and music publisher . The publication was published in 1969 in Warsaw by the State Publishing Institute (PIW) in the prestigious series “Novels of the 20th Century”, translated by Edwin Herbert .

“The Wooden Ship” (original title: Das Holzschiff) is the first part of the monumental, unfinished trilogy “Fluss ohne Ufer” (“River without Shores”), which Jahnn had been working on since the mid-1930s. The first draft was written in 1934 on the Danish island of Bornholm, where the writer, as a staunch pacifist and opponent of Nazism, fled after Hitler’s rise to power. The novel was finally published in Germany in 1949 .

“Wooden Ship” is the story of the title vessel, which with a mysterious cargo is sailing in an unknown direction. Devoid of metaphorical sailing, whose symbol would be hope? No, here the ship is ruled by the Curse and Destiny. The story – sensational in plot (the adventures of a stowaway searching for his fiancée, who disappeared on the ship under unexplained circumstances) – is at the same time a parabolic parable, a warning of the coming war, of the danger threatening moral and cultural values as a result of Hitler’s rise to power.

Hans Henny Jahnn was an extremely controversial and versatile figure – some critics (such as Walter Muschg) hailed him as “the greatest German novelist of his time,” while others considered him a “mere pornographer” because of his uncompromising and scandalous depiction of the sexual sphere . Throughout his life he remained faithful to the idea of “the possibility of the expansion of the human soul” and produced works that were intended to be “a hymn to the omnipotence of inner secretion” . Posthumously published “Epilogue” (1961), which is an excerpt from the last, unfinished part of his trilogy .

This is the first Polish edition – the absolute first printing of this novel in Polish. It belongs to the sought-after series of PIW “Novels of the 20th Century” by collectors. The presented copy is clean and preserved in very good condition. It is a must-have for a collector of German literature, a lover of experimental, psychological and anti-war prose, and a bibliophile looking for a representative edition of the work of one of the most fascinating and controversial German writers of the 20th century.

8658-20-BW