Tag Archive: 0German

I was recently reminded about the German tradition of the Barbarazweig, and thought I’d share a short Advent piece by Hugo Distler (1908–1942) which I translated some years ago: I first sang it back in December 1995, when I was living in Germany, and found it quite charming. Distler’s work is little known in the […]

I am currently cataloguing some new material in preparation for the Boston Virtual Book Fair next week. Here’s one such item: ‘This elaborate house-blessing [which measures 412 × 325 mm], issued in the 1820s by Johann Ritter and Company of Reading … provides a unique poetic blessing rather than the common prose versions and the shorter […]

I wrote these back in 2009, when they were premiered by the Damon Singers. The text for the third was one of the readings at our wedding (my wife and I both studied modern languages at university).  Having discovered it, I read more of Heine’s work, and found two more poems of his I wanted […]

As many will know, ephemera has been an interest of mine since I set up the business (ten years ago this year!). Recently, I discovered a genre of which I was previously unaware: fancy printed greetings cards from eighteenth-century Germany, using colour and silk. Here is a New Year’s card, the etching printed in blue, […]

Another book from the recently-released Anglo-German Cultural Relations catalogue: Albrecht von Haller’s Usong.  An Eastern Narrative …  (London: Printed for the Translator; and sold by F. Newbery … and J. Walter …  1772). This first edition in English was published only a year after the original had appeared in Germany, apparently at the instigation of Queen Charlotte.  ‘This […]

This weekend, at least here in the UK, is Mother’s Day, so I thought I would share something we have here in the office: A hand-coloured etching, inscribed at the head ‘An meine liebe Mama 1786’. To paraphrase the printed greeting below, which is on silk (a window has been cut in the etching, and […]