Franz Blei (pseudonyms: Medardus, Dr. Peregrinus Steinhövel, Amadée de la Houlette, Franciscus Amadeus, Gussie Mc-Bill, Prokop Templin, Heliogabal, Nikodemus Schuster, L. O. G., Hans Adolar; January 18, 1871 July 10, 1942) was an essayist, playwright and translator. He was also noted as a bibliophile, a

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...

, an editor in chief and

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

. He was a friend and collaborator of

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...

Life

He was the son of a shoemaker and trained as an architect. As a member of the literati, he was at great risk in Nazi-occupied Europe and eventually succeeded after a lengthy odyssey in reaching the USA in 1941 where he settled in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Work

He translated into German work by Walt Whitman,

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...

and

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, ; ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the great writers in the French language and world liter ...

among others and also published his own monograph on the paintings of the symbolist Félicien Rops. He was also a prolific editor of small-press journals. Kafka said of him: "Franz Blei is much cleverer, and greater, than what he writes." (Janouch, 1971. "Conversations With Kafka").

''Amethyst'' and ''The Opals''

From December 1905 to November 1906, he was the editor of the private magazine ''Amethyst'' (pub. Hans von Weber) and then ''The Opals'', which were available by subscription only and were mildly pornographic. The journals featured the artwork of

Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley ( ; 21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Woodblock printing in Japan, Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. ...

and Félicien Rops, texts by Jules Laforgue and also erotic prose from translated texts by Paul Verlaine and classic erotic plays and poems from around the world. Only 800 numbered copies were produced of each issue, and the young Kafka had a subscription. ''The Opals'' was the first to publish Carl Einstein's ''Bebuquin'', the first German expressionist novel. These literary small-press journals, known about by Kafka scholars for many decades, became the basis for a silly season press story in 2008,Franz Kafka's porn brought out of the closet - Times Online
at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk in ''The Times'' of London, when a novelist promoting a new book claimed to have discovered Kafka's 'secret pornography stash' among his archived papers.

''Hyperion''

From 1908 to 1909, he co-edited the short-lived journal '' Hyperion'' with Carl Sternheim, which was the first to publish work by a young Franz Kafka. The first issue published a short fragment of Kafka's story " Description of a Struggle". More substantial extracts of the work were published in the final issue of ''Hyperion'' in the spring of 1909. Extracts from another seven Kafka works were also published in the magazine.

Bibliography

* Paul Raabe, "Franz Kafka und Franz Blei", in: ''F. Kafka. Ein Symposium. Datierung, Funde, Materialien,'' Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin 1965, pp. 7–20. * Ulrich E Bach, "Franz Bleis einsames Exil." In: ''Deutschsprachige Exilliteratur seit 1933'' 3/I USA Supplement. Ed. John M. Spalek, Konrad Feilchenfeldt and Sandra H. Hawrylchak. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010: 3-13

* Ulrich E Bach, "'Das Formierte der Erotik': Franz Blei und der erotische Buchhandel." In: Christine Hauck, Johannes Frimmel and Anke Vogel (eds.), ''Erotisch-pornographische Lesestoffe: Das Geschäft mit Erotik im deutschen Sprachraum vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart''. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2015. 143-158

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External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Blei, Franz 19th-century Austrian dramatists and playwrights Austrian essayists Austrian translators Translators to German Austrian theatre critics Austrian editors Austrian publishers (people) Bibliophiles Writers from Vienna 1871 births 1942 deaths Male essayists 19th-century translators 19th-century Austrian male writers 20th-century translators 20th-century Austrian male writers 20th-century publishers (people) 19th-century essayists 20th-century essayists 20th-century Austrian dramatists and playwrights Austrian male dramatists and playwrights