(#134656) DIE ANDERE SEITE. EIN PHANTASTISCHER ROMAN. Alfred Kubin.
DIE ANDERE SEITE. EIN PHANTASTISCHER ROMAN ...
DIE ANDERE SEITE. EIN PHANTASTISCHER ROMAN ...
DIE ANDERE SEITE. EIN PHANTASTISCHER ROMAN ...
DIE ANDERE SEITE. EIN PHANTASTISCHER ROMAN ...

DIE ANDERE SEITE. EIN PHANTASTISCHER ROMAN. Munchen und Leipzig: Georg Muller, 1909. Octavo, pp. [i-viii] 1-338 [339] [340: blank], 52 full page black and white illustrations by Kubin, double page map inserted at rear, preliminary leaves printed in yellow and black, original pictorial blue boards, front and spine panels stamped in black and gold, rear panel stamped in gold, t.e.g., blue endpapers, gold ribbon marker. First edition. Issued in both paper and in boards, this is one of the latter. "... a novel that, in its sexual symbolism, catastrophism and exotic imagery, came to be seen as prophetic of the horrors to come." - Clute and Grant (eds), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997), p. 74. "The period prior to World War I produced one indisputable masterpiece of fantastic literature, THE OTHER SIDE, written by the artist and illustrator Alfred Kubin, the most famous German book illustrator of the fantastic and horror genres in the twentieth century. Kubin was a friend of Meyrink, related to O. A. H. Schmitz, and exchanged letters with many of the important writers of his time. He was haunted by an extraordinarily vivid imagination; he illustrated Poe, Hoffmann, Dostoevski, and many fantastic books, and much of his writing was of an autobiographical nature. His strange novel THE OTHER SIDE, was influenced by Hoffmann, Poe, Meyrink, expressionism, and Eastern thought, and is also partly autobiographical, mixing mythological with private symbols. The book tells of a 'dream empire' in Asia, the creation of the narrator's school-friend Claus Patera, and its decay and fall ... The novel is an expression of Kubin's own troubled psyche and perhaps a vision of the end of his own society. For Kubin, the world is a frightening place, a veritable hell, in which good and evil are inseparably connected, different aspects of one and same reality. The rich imagery and symbolism of the novel make THE OTHER SIDE a masterpiece of German literature, not merely a masterpiece of the fantasy genre." - Franz Rottensteiner, "German-Language Fantasy Since 1900" in Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature V, p. 2403. Barron (ed), Fantasy and Horror (1999) 4-90. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature III, pp. 1176-8. Survey of Science Fiction Literature IV, pp. 1627-31. Kretzmann, The Pre-War German Utopian Novel (1890-1914), Ph.D. diss., Brown University, May, 1936, p. 213. Lexikon 1, pp. 158-9. Bloch (2002) 1805. Bookplate of Walther Konigsberger affixed to front paste-down. Slight spine lean, touch of wear to boards at spine ends, but a fine copy. A remarkably nice copy of a book that is seldom found in decent condition. Enclosed in a custom quarter leather clamshell box. (#134656).

Price: $4,750.00

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