Yale Collection of German Literature of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University in New Haven

Grundeintrag 1998

[2/ S. 355:] Die »Yale Collection of German Literature« ist Teil der »Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library«, die sich auf dem Gelände der Yale University in New Haven (Connecticut) befindet. 1913 aus Anlaß des Erwerbs einer großen Sammlung von Goetheana gegründet, verfügt sie heute über bedeutende Bestände auch aus dem Bereich der deutschsprachigen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts. Aus österreichischer Perspektive hervorzuheben sind umfangreiche Briefbestände Hugo von Hofmannsthals und Arthur Schnitzlers sowie der Gesamtnachlaß von Hermann Broch.

[2/ S. 356:] The Yale Collection of German Literature, part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, was established in 1913 when the University acquired the William A. Speck Collection of Goetheana, now the largest Goethe collection outside Germany. In 1944, Curt von Faber du Faur joined the Yale faculty, and his collection, although its particular focus is the baroque period, became the basis for a collection of literature in German that now extends from about 1600 through the 20th century.

In the process of collecting four centuries of literature in German, Yale has acquired the printed works of major Austrian writers such as Franz Grillparzer, Nikolaus Lenau, Adalbert Stifter, and Franz Kafka. Curt von Faber du Faur brought to Yale the works of the great Viennese preacher Abraham a Sancta Clara, but also the plays of Johann Nestroy and a magnificent copy of Kaiser Maximilian I’s »Theuerdank« (1517). In forming its Goethe collection, Yale acquired such treasures as Franz Schubert songs in their first printed editions and Burgtheater playbills for »Faust« from the 1880s and 90s.

The printed works of three Austrian authors have been collected in depth. In 1957 the library received a collection of 186 volumes by and about Rainer Maria Rilke, including almost all of his first editions. Yale also holds 115 titles by Hermann Bahr, representing about 80% of his output. Printed works by and about Hermann Broch have been gathered to support study of Broch’s papers.

A relatively new addition to Yale’s holdings is a collection amassed by Hans-Jürgen Frick of Founex, Switzerland. With a strong focus on the Expressionist period, the approximately 5.000 titles in the Frick Collection cover the period 1900 to 1945 and include works by many Austrians, well-known writers such as Peter Altenberg, Franz Theodor Csokor, Heimito von Doderer, Albert Ehrenstein, Franz Kafka, Egon Erwin Kisch, Oskar Kokoschka, Karl Kraus, Robert Musil, Alfred Polgar, Otto Stoessl, Georg Trakl, and Franz Werfel, but also works by lesser-known authors, for example Richard Billinger, Arnolt Bronnen, Georg Kulka, George Saiko, Theodor Tagger, and the Moravian authors Ernst Sommer, Hugo Sonnenschein, and Ludwig Winder. The Frick Collection contains some later writers, including an extensive gathering of the works of H. C. Artmann.

Several of the authors represented in the Frick Collection also appear in the papers of the Kurt Wolff Verlag, purchased from Wolff in 1947. The longest correspondence in that collection is with Franz Werfel, numbering over 900 items, including poetry manuscripts by Werfel and correspondence by Alma Mahler Werfel. Kurt Wolff’s correspondence with Kafka consists of 47 items. Franz Blei, Max Brod, Albert Eh- [2/ S. 357:] renstein, Oskar Kokoschka, Karl Kraus, Gustav Meyrink, Alfred Polgar, and Georg Trakl are also represented by correspondence in the Yale Kurt Wolff papers.

While Harvard University is the principal repository for Richard Beer-Hofmann’s papers, the Beinecke Library counts among its holdings some 500 letters (1891-1928) to Beer-Hofmann from Arthur Schnitzler; another 300 (1890-1929) from Hofmannsthal, and 75 (1894-1925) from Hermann Bahr.

The Nachlass of Hermann Broch is the largest single Austrian literary resource at Yale. The approximately 33 linear feet (= 10 meters, 75 boxes) of material includes manuscripts of all of Broch’s works, a large file of his correspondence, personal papers, and photographs, including many by the Austrian photographer Trude Geiringer. The Collection holds related papers by Hermann Broch’s son, Hermann Friedrich Broch de Rothermann, his translator, Jean Starr Untermeyer, and his friend Erich von Kahler.

Many of Yale’s manuscript holdings may be searched via the internet (http://webtext.library.yale.edu/search.html). Yale’s online catalog of printed materials contains records for all catalogued books and pamphlets at the Beinecke Library (http://webpac.library.yale.edu/).