Gustav Meyrink Livres

A complex and ambitious novel which centres on the life of the Elizabethan magus, John Dee, in England, Poland and Prague, as it intertwines past and present, dreams and visions, myth and reality in a world of the occult, culminating in the transmutation of physical reality into a higher spiritual existence. John Dee, through his 20th century descendant, is led by the Green Angel to the 'Other Side of the Mirror'. From the erotically alluring Assja Shotokalungin (in all her incarnations), the pliant Jane, the mischievous Queen Elizabeth 1 to the earless charlatan Kelley, the truly grotesque Bartlett Greene and the sinister Emperor Rudolph1, John Dee heads a cast which lingers in the mind long after the book has been put down.

Gustav Meyrink is one of the most important and interesting authors of early 20th-century German Literature. To establish his reputation in the English-speaking world Dedalus has translated his five novels plus a collection of his short stories and published the first ever English-language biography of Meyrink. Now is the time to produce an overview of Meyrink in a single volume. The Dedalus Meyrink Reader has excerpts from all the translated books and a whole section of hitherto untranslated material, including the stories from the collection Flederm use and autobiographical articles. This volume is perfect companion for both the Meyrink scholar and the first-time Meyrink reader, containing as it does the whole gamut of Meyrink's writing from his love of the bizarre, the grotesque and the macabre to the spine-chilling occult tales and his quest to know what is on the Other Side of the Mirror.Novelist, satirist, translator of Charles Dickens, dandy, man-about-time, fencer, rower, banker and mystic seer, there are many, sometimes contradictory aspects to Gustav Meyrink, who must also be the only novelist to have challenged a whole army regiment to a duel. He has left behind a unique body of work, which can be sampled and enjoyed in The Dedalus Meyrink Reader.

The White Dominican is Meyrink's most esoteric novel, and draws on the wisdom of a number of mystical traditions, the most important of which is Tao. It is set in a mystical version of the Bavarian town of Wassserburg which sits on a promontory surrounded on three sides by the river Inn. The novel describes the spiritual journey of the simple hero, who, guided by a number of figures including his eccentric father, the spirit of of a distant ancestor, the protecting presence of his dead lover and the mysterious figure of the White Dominican, escapes the 'Medusa head' of the world to a transfiguration, through which he joins the 'living chain that stretches to infinity'.

Of the volumes available to the English public, The Green Face, first published in 1916, is the most enjoyable. In an Amsterdam that very much resembles the Prague of The Golem, a stranger, Hauberisser, enters by chance a magician's shop. The name on the shop, he believes, is Chidher Green; inside, among several strange customers, he hears an old man, who says his name is Green, explain that, like the Wandering Jew, he has been on earth 'ever since the moon has been circling the heaven.' When Hauberisser catches sight of the old man's face, it makes him sick with horror. The face haunts him. The rest of the novel chronicles Hauberisser's quest for the elusive and horrible old man. Alberto Manguel in The Observer

This collection contains short stories translated for the first time as well as stories featured in Dedalus anthologies. Together with volume 1 they comprise the most comprehensive collection of Meyrink short stories to appear in English. Meyrink's short stories epitomised the non-plus-ultra of all modern writing. Their magnificent colour, their spine-chilling and bizarre inventiveness, their aggression, their succinctness of style, their overwhelming originality of ideas, which is so evident in every sentence and phrase that there seem to be no lacunae. -- Max Brod These tales - sc-fi, ghost-stories, gothic fables, oriental allegories - were written in the first decade of the century and are now translated for the first time. They make a magnificent introduction to his bizarre genius, which combined the sharp Bohemian scepticism of his contemporary Kafka with the mordant humour and outreach of Swift. -- Independent on Sunday

First published in 1994 it is a welcome return for these classic stories in a 2-volume collection of Meyrink's short stories. 'Meyrink's short stories epitomised the non-plus-ultra of all modern writing. Their magnificent colour, their spine-chilling and bizarre inventiveness, their aggression, their succinctness of style, their overwhelming originality of ideas, which is so evident in every sentence and phrase that there seem to be no lacunae.'Max Brod "These tales - sc-fi, ghost-stories, gothic fables, oriental allegories - were written in the first decade of the century and are now translated for the first time. They make a magnificent introduction to his bizarre genius, which combined the sharp Bohemian scepticism of his contemporary Kafka with the mordant humour and outreach of Swift." -Independent on Sunday

V autobiografické stati z pozůstalosti Proměna krve známý německy píšící autor souvisle popisuje svůj duchovní vývoj a zabývá se okultními otázkami. Jedná se o vzácný text, který doposud v češtině nevyšel; nejspíše je zlomkem plánované autobiografické knihy Styx, na níž podle svých slov Meyrink pracoval v letech 1927 až 1929.

Povídky, pojednání, korespondence. Antologie Meyrinkova díla, jež dosud nebylo českému čtenáři zpřístupněno. Kniha obsahuje výbor Meyrinkových článků, textů z pozůstalosti a neznámou korespondenci s pražským nakladatelem Neubertem. Nejenže většina textů vychází česky poprvé, ale Meyrinkova korespondence s Neubertem nebyla dosud vůbec, ani v zahraničí, zveřejněna. Kniha přináší také množství dosud nepublikovaných fotografií.