Diagram 1: Historical Novels 1780-1945
Also published as: Günter Mühlberger, Kurt Habitzel: The German Historical Novel (1780-1945): The German Historical Novel from 1780 to 1945. Utilising the Innsbruck Database. Travellers in Time and Space. Reisende durch Zeit und Raum. The German Historical Novel Der deutschsprachige historische Roman. Hrsg. von Osman Durrani and Julian Preece. Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik, Bd. 51. Amsterdam: Rudopi 2001, S. 5-23.
In 1805 the Allgemeine Literaturzeitung (ALZ, No. 103) published an article on the contemporary literature of the novel giving us a kind of summary of the motives that have also instigated the Innsbruck project on the historical novel: [1]
[...] schwerlich ist ein Zweig der Literatur in so naher Berührung mit der Cultur der Nation, als eben dieser [= die Romanen-Literatur]. Die Empfänglichkeit eines Zeitalters für eine gewisse Gattung von Romanen giebt Aufschlüsse über den Geist dieses Zeitalters, und das Verhältniss zwischen beiden auszumitteln dürfte wohl nützlicher seyn, als alle Klagen über die Fluth von schlechten Romanen, die, so häufig geführt, doch in der Sache nichts ändern: denn das Publicum liest fort, und seine allezeit fertigen Diener schreiben fort, bis ein gewaltiger Geist, oder der Umstände mächtiger Drang den grossen Strom anders lenken. Jenen zu charakterisiren, diese zu erforschen, darf selbst der Geschichtsschreiber der Menschheit nicht verschmähen.[2]
Our project team, too, wanted to track down the "Empfänglichkeit eines Zeitalters für eine gewisse Gattung von Romanen", and we also wanted to refrain from merely complaining about a "Fluth von schlechten Romanen": we rather intended to include these novels in our research as objects of serious investigation.
In our study we aimed at a broad and, if at all possible, comprehensive description of the genre of the "historical novel" from its beginnings up to 1945. Most of the writers of these "historical novels" have gone unnoticed by the historians of literature, and have, rightly or unjustly, sunk into oblivion. In our opinion, however, these long since forgotten representatives of a genre that produced an almost infinite number of aesthetically insignificant novels should be granted the same status as topics of research as is conventionally being conferred on their aesthetically first-rate contemporaries.
One prerequisite for attaining this goal was to compile a bibliography of historical novels that was to be as comprehensive as possible. We considered it impossible to form a sound and far-reaching judgement without having the material basis for it. Another prerequisite was to compile as many significant data as possible that could be evaluated employing statistical methods. We thus wanted to pass meaningful judgement - meaningful from the point of literary history - on several thousand historical novels, while refraining from describing a limited number of books as exemplary and ideal-typical, which is the usual method.
The question now - what a historical novel really is - is, of course, a debatable one. But in order to be able to do bibliographic research it is necessary to give a rather mechanical definition that, in short, runs as follows: A historical novel is a work of prose fiction of at least 150 pages, set, for the most part, in a time before the author's birth. For our selection is was also necessary that the novels have been originally published in German and in book form - that is, not in a newspaper or magazine. Nor did we collect literature for children or younger readers.
When we set out to compile a comprehensive bibliography, we assumed that - based on existing research bibliographies - we would find no more than 3000 novels. In fact, we found more than 6300 books published between 1780 and 1945 which may definitely be classified as historical novels, according to our criteria. Even allowing for some inaccuracy as to the completeness of such a bibliography, we believe that the estimated number of undetected books will not exceed 5 % of our total.
Parallel to our bibliographical work we tried to gather data about each novel and author that could be relevant for the history of literature. In view of the enormous amount of data, evaluation had to be made by employing statistical methods.
Using such methods, we found ourselves confronted with the problem of how to present the data. In many cases it was, therefore, absolutely necessary to process and adapt the material so that it could be graphically displayed in diagrams. The visualisation of the data we gathered, however, is not only intended to illustrate the material but may itself be considered an instrument of research. Some of the questions and results become "visible" in the actual sense of the word through being graphically displayed.
Diagram 1 shows an initial and fundamental result of our bibliographical work. It gives a survey of all historical novels we ascertained between 1780 and 1945 according to their date of publication.
Diagram 1: Historical Novels 1780-1945
It is not until the last decade of the 18th century that historical novels begin to be published in significant numbers. In the 1810s, however, they almost completely disappear from the annals of literary history. During the first half of the 1820s we can observe a resurgence that continues up to the 1860s, interrupted only by some turbulence around 1850. After a transitional phase, the historical novel re-emerges in the 1870s and 1880s, and publication numbers sharply rise at the start of the 20th century to reach a first peak in 1913. World War I, however, disrupts this development. Yet in the 1920s, and even more so in the 1930s, the genre unmistakably takes off to reach its apex in 1937. World War II abruptly ends this boom.
As a supplement to this brief survey we will give a more detailed interpretation of the graph and, in addition to that, provide a number of statements by contemporary writers.
Contrary to the results presented by Michael Meyer in his 1973 in the dissertation the first boom between 1785 and 1810 has more or less been disregarded by standard literary histories.[3] There is a deep-rooted 19th-century preconception that the historical novel originated with Sir Walter Scott. In actual fact, however, all basic requirements for the emergence of an independent literary genre had already been fulfilled before that. Let us make four basic observations:
First: Starting in the mid-eighties of the 18th century the genre designation "historischer Roman" is already being used by literary critics and authors as a standard term. In 1785, for instance, August Gottlieb Meißner's Bianca Capello is recommended to the public in a review as being a "angenehme[r] historische[r] Roman".[4] The term already connoted the same characteristics that still apply today: "Ein historischer Roman [ist] von der Art, [...] wo wahre historische Charaktere und wirkliche Thatsachen mit Fictionen verwebt sind."[5]
Second: Beginning in 1790 there is an animated genre discussion anticipating nearly all important arguments that characterise the poetological discussion of the 19th and 20th centuries. There is heated controversy over the relationship between fact and fiction, over the appropriate integration of historical facts into a work of art, and over the didactic implications for the reader that follow from it. Being a "Zwittergeschöpf [..] von Roman und Geschichte"[6] the historical novel seems to be a "wirkliche Misgeburt des menschlichen Geistes"[7]. Apart from that we can also find the following opinion: "Der historische Roman ist der Form nach eine neue Gattung von Komposizion, die den Alten unbekannt war; [...] aber in Ansehung seines wesentlichen Merkmals, d. i. der Mischung von Fikzion und Thatsachen, [...] ist der h. R. [historische Roman] nicht neu; [...]."[8] In other words: The blending of fiction and historical fact do not negate the artistic qualities of a work. On the contrary, it is exactly this mixture of fiction and truth that enables the author to imagine history beyond the limits imposed by scientific historiography. Accordingly, Johann Baptist Durach notes in the foreword to his historical novel Philippine Welserin (1792): "Wirklich schöpfte ich aus lautern Quellen, und suchte die Lücken der Geschichte anstatt bloß mit mährchenähnlichen Sagen, durch vielleicht nicht unwahrscheinliche Muthmaßungen zu ergänzen [...]."[9]
Third: At this point, contemporaries already distinguish clearly between historical novels on the one hand, and the romances of chivalry and gothic novels on the other. A 1798 review of Die schöne Gerlinde von Henneberg. Eine Geschichte aus dem eilften Jahrhundert comments as follows:
Zu einiger Empfehlung des Büchleins dient, dass die Geschichte kurz und nicht, wie das angegebene Zeitalter vermuthen lassen könnte, zu dem proscribirten Geschlecht der Ritterromane gehört. Bey dem zwar kraftlosen, aber doch ziemlich reinen und modernen Stil, hört man nichts von dem Gerassel der Thurniere und Lanzen, der Gelage und Humpen; [...].[10]
Fourth: The structural models of this first fashion wave resemble the later booms of the genre in a striking manner. It was Benedicte Naubert who made the breakthrough with her novel Geschichte Emmas, Tochter Kaiser Karls des Großen und seines Geschichtschreibers Eginhard, published as early as 1785. Other writers, such as Gottlob Heinrich Heinse, August Gottlieb Meißner, Ignaz Aurel Feßler, Johann Baptist Durach and, later on, Caroline Pichler, follow. The genre is favourably received by the literary critics and, even more so, by its readership. In the 1890s, however, criticism increases that the writers dedicated to the genre were "manufacturers" rather than authors. In spite of a minor resurgence around 1805, the historical novel almost completely disappears from the minds of the literary public after 1810. This development is further intensified by the depression occurring during the Napoleonic wars and the resulting collaps of the book market.
Owing to the low popularity of the genre during the first decades of the 19th century, the reception of Sir Walter Scott's early novels was observed with particular curiosity by his contemporaries. In the 1820s Sir Walter Scott's novels triggers a wave of historical novels that even contemporaries already called "Scott-Mania".[11] In only a few years, literary production burgeoned and finally reached a plateau in the 1830s. It can also be observed that there is hardly a year in the 19th century when nearly as many historical novels were published as in 1830; it is only after 1910 that their number increases significantly. In the 1820s and 1830s the desire of the public for historical works of entertainment was so strong that even 18th century authors were widely read.[12] In the typical lending library of the Biedermeier period one could find novels by Benedicte Naubert standing next to successful writers of the 1820s or 1830s. Apart from Carl Spindler's Der Jesuit, Caroline Pichler's Agathokles of 1808 turned out to be the most successful historical novel of the first half of the 19th century.
In addition to Spindler and Pichler, the most important writers of that time are Carl Franz van der Velde, Willibald Alexis, August von Witzleben, Ludwig Rellstab, Henriette von Paalzow and Karl Borromäus Herloßsohn. Hoping for a German Sir Walter Scott, literary criticism in the 1820s still more or less appreciated historical novels, and quite a few of the writers just mentioned were praised. In the 1830s, however, the genre was sharply attacked. Karl Gutzkow, for instance, complained in 1835 that "der historische Roman heruntergekommen [war] auf ein Amalgam von Sentimentalität, Unglück und Weltgeschichte, auf eine unverantwortliche Zuschneiderei von Thatsachen."[13]
In 1847, when the deficiencies of the historical novel become obvious, Robert Prutz writes in his article on the Stellung und Zukunft des historischen Romans:
Kaum eine andere Literaturgattung hat bis auf diese Stunde so abweichende, so widersprechende Beurtheilungen erfahren, als der historische Roman, diese jüngste, recht eigentlich moderne Frucht der literarischen Entwicklung überhaupt. Von der Lesewelt gierig verschlungen, zum Liebling des Publikums erklärt, hat die Kritik ihm nur halbe, mißgünstige Blicke zugeworfen. Die Mehrzahl unsrer Aesthetiker hat keinen Anstand genommen, den historischen Roman geradewegs für eine Verirrung, eine Schöpfung weit mehr der Industrie, als der Kunst, ein bloßes Product der unmäßig gesteigerten Schreib- und Leselust unsers papiernen Jahrhunderts zu erklären.[14]
During the late 1840s and early 1850s literary production significantly decreases; yet as early as the 1860s the level of the Biedermeier period is reached again. As was the case with the booming years of 1790 and 1825, most of the successful and famous novels are once again published in the years of the upswing of the genre. We should mention here Victor von Scheffel's Ekkehard, published in 1855; Albert Emil Brachvogel's Friedemann Bach (1858), Hermann Kurz's Der Sonnenwirth (1854), or Hermann Klencke's works on the history of civilisation. The most productive writer of the period - and, incidentally, of the historical novel altogether - was Louise Mühlbach (=Clara Mundt), who published 33 novels in as many as 174 volumes between 1847 and 1874. Parallel to this renewed expansion, literary critics such as Adolf Stern once again speak of the "verdiente Geringschätzung" of a genre that was, in his mind, dominated by a mass production that had its basis in the "äußerste Bildungslosigkeit und klägliche Oberflächlichkeit des lesenden Publikums".[15] Around 1865, this second boom of the historical novel in the 19th century comes to an end, and by 1875 the genre has clearly diminished in importance.
It is only after 1875 that writers are attracted to the historical novel again. The renewed increase in popularity is prompted by the emergence of new names and subject-matters: Gustav Freytag's Ahnen is published between 1872 and 1880, Felix Dahn's Kampf um Rom in 1874, and, beginning in 1877, Georg Eber's Egyptian novels are also issued in rapid succession. Owing to these successes, the number of historical novels doubles in just ten years. This development did not pass unnoticed by contemporary literary critics; accordingly, Fritz Mauthner writes in Schorers Familienblatt of 1884: "Insbesondere der historische Roman erfreut sich einer immer noch steigenden Überproduktion; wer der Mode folgen will, kann bereits eine geräumige Stube bis zur Decke mit den Helden von Rhamses bis Napoleon füllen."[16] Although the readership shows unmistakable signs of weariness, "overproduction" persists on that high level until the end of the 19th century.
Around 1900 and, increasingly so in the years between 1909 and 1913, there is again an explosive rise in the production of historical novels, the like of which had not been experienced since the early 1820s. Well-known writers of the time, churning out novel after novel, were Paul Schaumburg, Ludwig Huna, Käthe Papke, and Paul Schreckenbach, to mention only a few.
In 1910 Heinrich Spiero aptly remarks: "Der historische Roman und die historischen Novellen sind in aller Stille in den letzten zwanzig Jahren wieder herangewachsen und leben in erfreulicher Frische [...]."[17]
This exponential increase reaches its peak in 1913, but is sharply interrupted by World War I, which is attended by a remarkable lack of interest in things historical. Looking back on the time, the Swiss author Emanuel Stickelberger writes: "Als ich zu schreiben begann [that was in 1917], war die schöne Literatur historischer Prägung just unbeliebt. Der Leser hatte davor eine schwer zu überwindende Scheu."[18]
Yet in the years after World War I the dynamics of the pre-war period are very soon taken up again, and the level of 1913 is reached as early as 1922. This level is maintained all through the following decade of the Weimar Republic. In his essay Der geschichtliche Roman der Gegenwart of 1924 Ernst Lemke writes: "Heute will es uns scheinen, als entwickelten wir uns immer entschiedener auf eine neue Blüte des geschichtlichen Romanes zu."[19] According to Lemke, this flowering could only be based on the novels of Ricarda Huch, Walter Molo, and Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer. And he continues: "Diese Fortentwicklung war aber zu keiner Zeit so nötig wie heute. Fehlt doch der großen Masse unseres Volkes nichts so sehr wie der geschichtliche Sinn [...]."[20]
In 1933 literary productivity increases once again. The exceptionally high level of the 1920s is almost doubled. From a national-socialist perspective, Bernt von Heiseler presents this development in 1934 as follows: "Es ist also nur folgerichtig, wenn mit der Erkenntnis der nationalen und pädagogischen Aufgaben des Schrifttums auch das Verlangen nach dem historischen Roman wiederkehrte. [...] heute, zwei Jahre nach dem Umschwung ist eine ganze neue Literatur historischer Romane aus dem Boden geschossen."[21] As Wilhelm Löw remarks in 1939, these historical novels would serve as a means "die große geschichtliche Existenz eines Volkes in seinem Bewußtsein tiefer zu verfestigen und in seinem Herzen bleibender zu begründen [...]".[22] And in 1940, Hans Hermann Wilhelm nods his satisfaction: "Es ist in der Tat richtig, daß der historische Roman und das historische Drama zu neuer Blüte gelangt sind."[23]
Some of the writers - among them Karl Aloys Schenzinger, Josefa Berens-Totenohl, and Bruno Brehm - who started to publish their first historical novels only after 1934 were particularly successful.
World War II finally brings about a total collapse of the literary market and, consequently, of the historical novel. There is, however, some indication that, even under the National Socialists, the historical novel would increasingly have had to justify itself - regardless of the war and its effects. In the journal Die neue Literatur of 1940 Gerhart Schmidt bemoans the "seuchenartige Verbreitung der sogenannten historischen Romane".[24]
We would also like to mention the historical novel of exile. In 1938 Georg Lukács notes: "Es ist eine bekannte und auffallende Tatsache, daß in der deutschen antifaschistischen Literatur der historische Roman eine führende Rolle spielt."[25] Conducting our own research, we were able to supplement the number of historical novels registered in the catalogue of the Deutsche Exilarchiv in Frankfurt[26] and managed to identified close to 70 historical novels by expatriate writers. Despite the small number of these historical novels - all in all, there are nearly 1400 historical novels published between 1933 and 1945 - about 25% of them were, according to the German catalogue of books in print, still available on the book market in 1997 (18 novels by 16 authors), whereas only 4% of the books published in National Socialist Germany were still available from the bookshops.
In order to adequately assess all idiosyncrasies pertaining to our statistical graphs and curves, further empirical investigation would be necessary. We would have to ask how the book market on the whole, how the segment of novels, how the segment of translations perform in comparison to the historical novel. Such investigations, however, do not exist in many areas. Yet it is obvious that book production in general, as well as the development of the book market for belletristic literature, will have to be considered. Neither the expansion around 1820 nor dramatic increase during the first half of the 20th century may be attributed exclusively to developments within the genre: it is clearly the book market itself that is responsible for these developments. We may, however, assume that the relative share of historical novels in overall production increases during the boom years: i.e. that the genre itself gains in importance.[27]
This brief outline has shown that even at first glance some stages and periods in the development of the historical novel turn out to be more conspicuous than others. We have also looked into that question from a statistical perspective while, at the same time, taking into account the following considerations: When did a generation of authors start writing? When and how long did it dominate an ensuing period of time? In other words: Where can we locate phases of auctorial continuity, and where do we find times of rapid change?
In diagram 2 we attempt to exemplify these considerations.
Diagram 2: generations
Based on these analyses and evaluations we would suggest to divide the development of the historical novel into six periods:
1. The pre-Scottian historical novel: from 1780 to 1815, showing two clearly discernible peaks in production around 1792 and 1805.
2. The historical novel of the Scottists: from 1816 to 1849. This generation of writers is distinctly separated from those around 1800; Caroline Pichler is the only one to bridge the gap.
3. The historical novel between 1850-1873. While the Scottists unequivocally dominate the years between 1820 and 1850, it is quite difficult to divide them from the next group of writers who publish their first historical novels between 1850 and 1873. There is some striking continuity as the authors of the older generation substantially increase their output of historical novels in the 1860s. It is quite obvious that the slump around 1848 is only temporary. It is only with some degree of caution that it may be used as a dividing line between two periods.
4. The historical novel of the "Gründerzeit": from 1874 to 1903. Towards the end of his detailed study of the historical novel between 1850 and 1875 Hartmut Eggert declares: "Manche Beobachtungen und erhebbare Daten verweisen darauf, daß die Jahre 1870-1875 eine Übergangsphase markieren, in der sich die Funktion des historischen Romans in Deutschland unter dem Einfluß der Reichsgründung wandelt."[28] We quite agree with him. Authors as well as subject-matters considerably change during these years, and it seems therefore justified to draw a dividing line between the two periods.
5. The historical novel of the "Moderne": from 1904 to 1933. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century a new generation of writers makes its appearance. In 1911 more than 80% of all historical novels were composed by authors who had written their first historical novel within the past 7 years.
World War I turned out to be a problem of its own kind. We had originally expected the First World War not only to cause a slump in production but also to bring changes that would replace the old writers by new ones. Bettina Hey'l, among others, convincingly argues that the Great War was experienced by many as the advent of a new generation, and with mounting hostility towards the old one. Accordingly, she postulates a radical transformation of the historical novel. However, looking at our statistical evaluations we find a striking continuity between pre-war and post-war times. From the perspective of a sociology of literature it is, therefore, only partly true to speak of a new epoch being ushered in.
6. The historical novel of exile and of National Socialism: from 1934 to 1945. Locating our final period division in 1933 resulted from political considerations on the one hand, as well as statistical observations on the other: Shortly after the National Socialist take-over, i.e. by the end of the 1930s, 70% of all historical novels were written by authors who had published their first historical novel after 1933. The 1930s were thus characterised by a striking amount of homogeneity among the authors.
Compared to the literary production going on under the control of the National Socialists, there is only an insignificant number of historical novels by exiled German writers. They may, however, be regarded as belonging to a separate and independent tradition.
Once again we would like to stress that our periodisation is, in the main, based on a quantitative assessment of the genre. Thus it does not make any statement regarding the actual value of the texts. Considering the development of literary fashions, however, it will not go unnoticed that quantitative phenomena are quite often paralleled by qualitative changes. So far, the results of our research have hardly been evaluated and applied to actual texts.
It is much easier to answer the question of who actually wrote these historical novels. Who were the authors of historical novels between 1780 and 1945? How many of the authors were male, how many were female? Relying on various reference books, we captured basic biographical information and data on all 2700 authors.
About 17% of the authors of these historical novels are female. Looking at their distribution in time, however, we came across a few surprises: Although there were two well-known female writers, i. e. Benedicte Naubert and Caroline Pichler, composing historical novels between 1780 and 1815, the percentage of female authors at the time amounted to only slightly more than 3%. With the advent of the Scott devotees the share of female authors quintuples. Remarkably, this amount of female participation in the trade begins as early as 1820 and does not change over the years. Likewise, there is no change in the ratio between male and female writers between 1850 and 1873, although female authors such as Louise Mühlbach or Henriette Paalzow were prominent figures of the time. From our point of view, however, it was the time between 1874 and 1903 that produced the most remarkable result. The last quarter of the 19th century is conspicuously female: Female writers now have a share of close to 27%. This amount of female literary productivity will - according to our figures - not be attained again, not even in the 20th century. At the beginning of the century female authorship drops to slightly under 20%, and it does not reach much more under the National Socialists, namely slightly less than 22%.
According to the research conducted by Kurt Habitzel on the historical novel of the German Democratic Republic,[29] this curve can be traced up to the present. The trend set during the first half of the 20th century continues without a break: 21% of all writers of historical novels are women. In this context, we would like to point out that the share of female writers reaches a distinct culmination of almost 30% in the 1960s, whereas their share drops again significantly in the 1970s.
It is obvious the choice of which historical period a novel is set in is of essential importance (see diagram 3). For the sake of simplicity we shall distinguish between novels set in ancient times, in the Middle Ages, and in modern times. "Others" in the diagram indicates novels set after 1850, or novels that span more than one historical period of time. As it is, the beginning of the historical novel is clearly under the sign of the Middle Ages and of classical antiquity. What particularly strikes the eye is the disappearance of antiquity novels after 1820. This complete disappearance of classical antiquity is to continue for more than half an century.
Diagram 3: Setting in time
On investigating the development of the antiquity novel after 1870 we are confronted with a radical change after the foundation of the German Empire: The share of the antiquity novel multiplied right up to 1890; after that, however, its appeal dwindled significantly.
The way the Middle Ages are taken as a theme is not devoid of idiosyncrasy. As mentioned before, the Middle Ages provide the dominant subject-matter for the historical novels of the 18th century. And even though most of them are quite different from their predecessors, the romances of chivalry, the lamentations of contemporary critics seem understandable against that background.
The focus on the Middle Ages continues to be an essential feature of the years between 1820 and 1849. After 1850 and into the early 1870s, however, this dominance totally diminishes. It is not until 1880 that the Middle Ages become popular in historical novels again and this situation continues - with some variation - up to 1945.
When looking at the graph as whole, two things become apparent: Between 1780 and 1870 there is a dramatic rise in public interest in subject-matters dealing with modern and contemporary history. The peak of focusing on modern history is reached between 1850 and 1870, and interest in this period of history is never to be as intense again. After 1870 this interest dwindles in a brief span of time; it is classical antiquity and the Middle Ages that are rediscovered as new subject-matters - all this, however, against the background of the successful foundation of the German Empire. During the years of World War I interest in subject-matters closer to the present also significantly increases; after the war there is a renaissance of the more remote past again.
While the general success of the genre is undisputed, we know very little about the exact proportions of their authors' success or failure in the literary market. Pointing at the first great wave of the reception of Sir Walter Scott in the German market as an example, we documented in some detail the winners and losers among the writers of historical novels.[30]
Since sales success is one of the best indicators of the contemporary significance of a book, one of our intentions was to find out not only the most successful novels of the period in question but also the mediocre ones and the failures. The usual method would have been to collect statements by contemporary commentators, to read the book reviews of important literary journals, and to give an interpretation of these investigations. In this way it would obviously not be possible to obtain information about all 990 novels written between 1815 and 1848.
In contrast to the methods conventionally applied, our solution is based on a completely different access to the literary market. Given that between 1820 and 1850 the prices for books in Germany and Austria were so high that literature and, especially, novels were distributed nearly exclusively by lending libraries, we consequently focused on lending libraries.[31] We collected more than 50 catalogues of these lending libraries and examined whether the historical novels published between 1780 and 1848 were part of these catalogues or not. In order to obtain more precise data, we further considered the date of publication of the catalogues and of the novels - and obtained interesting results about the success of individual historical novels in the German lending libraries between 1820 and 1867.
Success in the literary market was distributed in a very unequal way: More than half of the historical novels were bought by just 25% of the lending libraries. Only 75 of the 990 novels were bought by more than 50% of the lending libraries, and just 8 novels were offered in more than 75% of the lending libraries. These 8 novels had been written by three male authors and one female author. And it should be mentioned that the book that came in second had been written as early as in 1808, thus providing an example for the favourable and widespread reception of early historical novels during the Biedermeier period. Interestingly enough, as many as 40 novels could not be found in any lending library. These novels did not get any feedback from the literary market and were completely ignored by readers and by contemporary criticism alike. The result of this partial investigation might help to correct a notion that is prevalent among researchers of popular fiction, namely that popular fiction is automatically widely read.
If we finally break down the figures according to the respective proportions of male and female writers, historical novels written by women turn out to have been just as successful with lending libraries as those written by their male colleagues. When looking at the number of reprints, however, the ratio is clearly in favour of male writers: Reprints of historical novels by female authors are much less frequent. In other words, while historical novels written by women of the Biedermeier period seem to have answered the immediate needs of their readership, those by male authors came to be regarded as part of the cultural heritage and were, consequently, clearly favoured by the publishers.
The choice of title of a novel also needs to be considered. In this context, genre denominations also play an important part (see diagram 4).
Diagram 4: Genre denominations
We picked out the most frequently used genre denominations, i. e. "Roman", "historischer Roman", and "Erzählung". To the diagram we added those novels that displayed other or no genre denominations in their titles. The most popular genre name is not, as one might expect, "historischer Roman" but "Roman". This denotation experiences a linear rise beginning in the 1830s right across all periodic divisions. At the start of the 20th century 30% of all historical novels are generically subtitled as "Roman"; from the 1920s onwards, this figure rises to 50%. It is also quite illuminating to look at the trends started by the designation "historischer Roman". The name is used for the first time in a book title in 1794. But Christian Traugott Voigt's Athelin von Brutthow oder der Kreuzzug: Ein historischer Roman (1794) remains an exception in the 18th century. It is the designations "Geschichte" and "Gemälde" that are most popular in the 18th century. After 1820 the "historische Roman" enters the scene again, but it is only after 1850 that it becomes the predominant genre denominator. This development reaches its peak around 1870 when almost every second historical novel is subtitled "historischer Roman". Parallel to the decline of the historical novel the term "Erzählung" increases; it takes up a respectable share of the total between 1880 and 1915. The group of "others" deserves special mention. It contains as many as 372 different names for the genre. Most of them, 221 in particular, have obviously been formed ad hoc and were used only once. To mention a few examples: the "kirchengeschichtlicher Roman", the "Fürstengemälde", or the "Emigrantengeschichte". Only a few of these genre names actually shape a style; apart from the ones already mentioned there are the "Novelle", the "historische Novelle", the "historisch-romantische Erzählung" or the "historisch-romantische Gemählde", and the "geschichtliche Roman". The high percentage of the group of "others" before 1815, but also in the 1820s and 1830s, shows that the writers found it difficult to classify and name their works in an appropriate way.
We will close this survey by briefly summarising the time after 1945. Apart from data on the literature of the German Democratic Republic, we do not have any reliable figures on the development of the genre after 1945. There are many indications, however, that there is a temporary renaissance of the historical novel during the late 1940s and early 1950s; but no later than in the 1960s this short-lived development finally comes to an end. In 1962 Wolfgang Grözinger comments on the historical novel:
Unser Vergnügen am Geschichtsroman ist getrübt durch die bösen Erfahrungen, die wir mit der Geschichte machten. Wo wild gewordene Kleinbürger gefährlich zu leben beschlossen und dazu sichtlich durch Kolossalgemälde im Stile von Quo vadis animiert waren, mußte eine Literaturgattung in Mißkredit kommen, die offenbar aus den Torheiten der Menschen Kapital schlug.[32]
With the exception of biographical novels by authors such as Dieter Kühn, Elisabeth Plessen or Peter Härtling, mistrust of the historical novel may be considered a distinctive feature of German literature in the 1960s and 1970s. It is only with Umberto Eco's Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose), published in German in 1982, that the historical novel becomes socially acceptable again. At least partly influenced by postmodernism, the 1980s accordingly see the publication of some of the models that have recently shaped the style of the genre. Let us just mention Patrick Süßkind's Das Parfüm (1985), Sten Nadolny's Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit (1983), Waltraud Lewin's Federico (1984), Gisbert Haef's Hannibal (1989), Michael Köhlmeier's Telemach (1995) and, the most spectacular success of all these, Christoph Ransmayr's Die letzte Welt (1988). The latest trends towards the historical novel have not gone unnoticed by literary critics. Thomas Wörtche thus concludes in 1997:
Seit einiger Zeit erleben historische Romane eine Renaissance. [...] Eine Durchsicht der aktuellen Verlagskataloge zeigt, daß Romane, die in einem wie immer gearteten historischen Ambiente angesiedelt sind, die Buchproduktion dominieren. Vom lasterhaften alten Rom bis zu Bergwerken des 19. Jahrhunderts bleibt kaum eine Epoche unbearbeitet.[33]
Notes
[1] The project, which was funded by the
Austrian Science Fund FWF, was conducted by Johann Holzner and Wolfgang
Wiesmüller (Institut für Germanistik der Universität Innsbruck).
More information and the database on the historical novels can be found at the
Internet address: http://histrom.literature.at/. This text has been
translated by Manfred Nikolussi.
[2] "There is hardly a branch of literature more
closely intertwined with the culture of Nation than the literature of novels.
The susceptibility of an era to a particular genre of novels conveys the spirit
of that era; and an investigation of the relationship between the two is apt to
be more beneficial than all the complaints about the flood of bad novels that,
albeit frequently lodged, do not alter the actual state of affairs: their
readership goes on reading, and its ever ready servants go on writing, until a
powerful spirit, or the inexorable pressure of circumstances, redirect the
mighty current. Not even the historian of mankind may reject the task of
characterising the former, of analysing the latter." [Anonymous]:
Romanen-Literatur. In: Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (=ALZ) (22 April
1805) No. 103, column 153-159, here: column 153. [= first part of a review
published in six instalments on the literature of novels in Germany. Cf. (22
April 1805) No. 104, column 161-165 (= second part); (23 April 1805) No. 105,
column 169-173 (= third part); (24 April 1805) No. 106, column 177-184 (=
fourth part); (5 September 1805) No. 238, column 481-488 (= fifth part); (6
September 1805) No. 239, column 489-492 (= sixth part).
[3] Michael Meyer: Die Entstehung des
historischen Romans in Deutschland und seine Stellung zwischen
Geschichtsschreibung und Dichtung: Die Polemik um eine Zwittergattung
(1785-1845). München 1973. Cf. Hugo Aust: Der historische
Roman. Stuttgart 1997 (Sammlung Metzler 278), p. 53-59.
[4] ALZ (1 March 1785) No. 50, p 210.
[5] ALZ (26 June 1788) No. 153a, column
685.
[6] ALZ (16 Dec. 1793) No. 343, column
522.
[7] Anonymous: Ueber den historischen Roman. In:
Philosophischer Anzeiger (13 May 1795) No. 21, column 161-164, here:
column 161.
[8] Für und wider den sogenannten
historischen Roman; in 2 Briefen. Erster Brief: Für. In: Kritische
Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften (July 1795) No. 7, p. 491-520
[Caution: issues and pages are incorrectly numbered!], here: p. 495-6.
Cf.
comments from the 20th century: Lion Feuchtwanger: Historischer
Roman - Roman von heute! In: Berliner Tageblatt. Morgen-Ausgabe.
(15 November 1931) No. 540, first insert: "Nun hören Sie oft gegen den
historischen Roman einen Einwand, der zunächst plausibel klingt: Er sei
eine Mischgattung, ausserordentlich verwirrend, eine illegitime Kreuzung aus
Wissenschaft und Kunst." Or: Bernt von Heiseler: Segen und Unsegen des
historischen Romans. In: Das Deutsche Wort 11 (1935) No. 35, p. 6-11,
here: p. 6: "Es sind nicht die schlechtesten Leser, die den historischen Roman
überhaupt als eine Zwitterart ablehnen und sagen: wenn ich über
Cäsar, Karl den Großen, Napoleon etwas erfahren will, hole ich mir
das Nötigste aus einem sachlichen Werk [...]."
[9] [Johann Baptist Durach]: Philippe
Welserinn. Eine Geschichte aus dem sechszehnten Jahrhunderte. Berlin 1792,
p. X.
[10] "What makes the book recommendable reading
is the brevity of the story and the fact that it does not belong, as the era
mentioned might suggest, to the proscribed generation of chivalry romances.
Albeit feeble, its stile is quite pure and modern, and the tale does not
resound with the rattle of tournaments and lances, of banquets and
tankards."
ALZ (Nov. 1800) No. 315, column 288.
[11] Theodor Schacht: Ueber Unsinn und
Barbarei in der heutigen deutschen Literatur. Mainz 1828, p. 146. Cf. also
Wilhelm Hauff: Die Bücher und die Lesewelt. (1827). In: Sämtliche
Werke, Vol. 3., ed. Sibylle von Steinsdorf. München 1970, p. 55-71.
[12] Wolfgang Menzel on the historical novel
before Sir Walter Scott: "Merkwürdig ist es, daß eine Dame den
ersten Anfang machte, die ältere vaterländische Geschichte in
zahlreichen Romanen zu bearbeiten, die berühmte Naubert, deren
Eginhard und Emma, Conradin von Schwaben, Hatto von Mainz, Elisabeth von
Toggenburg, Alf von Dülmen, Konrad von Feuchtwangen, Philippine von
Geldern, Ulrich Holzer, Walther von Station, der Bund des armen Konrad,
Friedrich der Siegreiche und viele andere Romane dem größeren
Publikum die deutsche Vorzeit in lebendigen Bildern anschaulich machten."
Wolfgang Menzel: Die deutsche Literatur, 4. Theil, 2. ed. Stuttgart
1836, p. 273-274. Among the authors from the late 18th century
Menzel also lists Friedrich Schlenkert, Ludwig Baczko, August Gottlieb
Meissner, Ignaz Aurel Fessler, and Caroline Pichler as predecessors of the
modern historical novel.
[13] Karl Gutzkow: Der historische Roman. In:
Phönix: Literaturblatt (8 April 1835) No. 14, p. 336.
[14] "[H]ardly any genre of literature has, up
to this hour, been judged in a more divergent and contradictory manner than the
historical novel, this youngest and truly modern fruit of literary evolution.
Avidly read by the public and declared its favourite, critics have shot only
cursory and resentful glances at it. The majority of our aestheticians has not
refrained from calling the historical novel a downright aberration, a product
far more of business than of art, a mere outgrowth of the excessively inflated
craze for writing and reading of our bookish century."
Robert Eduard Prutz:
Stellung und Zukunft des historischen Romans. In: Kleine Schriften zur
Politik und Literatur, 2 vols. Merseburg 1847, p. 279-91; here: vol. 1, p.
279.
[15] Adolf Stern: Der historische Roman. In:
Orion. Monatsschrift für Literatur und Kunst (1864) No. 4, p.
929-38; here: p. 929.
[16] Fritz Mauthner: Die Mode des historischen
Romans. In: Schorers Familienblatt. Eine illustrierte Zeitschrift
(2.3.1884) No. 9, p. 141.
[17] Heinrich Spiero: Der neue historische
Roman. In: Deutsche Geister. Studien und Essays zur Literatur der
Gegenwart. Leipzig 1910, p. 225-38; here: p. 237.
[18] Emanuel Stickelberger: Ueber den
Geschichtsroman. In: Der Geistesarbeiter. Organ des Schweiz.
Schriftstellervereins und der Gesellschaft schweizerischer Dramatiker 22
(Sept. 1943) No. 9, p. 81-84; here: p. 84. Cf. also Adolf Bartels: Die
Deutsche Dichtung der Gegenwart. Die Alten und die Neuen. 9th
ed. Leipzig 1918, p. 566: "Der Geschichtsroman nahm schon Ende der
neunziger Jahre des vorigen Jahrhunderts geradezu einen neuen Aufschwung."
[19] Ernst Lemke: Der geschichtliche Roman der
Gegenwart. In: Hellweg. Wochenschrift für deutsche Kunst (1924)
vol. 4, pp. 345-8, 361-4, 396-9, 442-6; here: p. 345. "Aber auch weil unsere
Gegenwart als ein gärender Most unendlich Großes in ihrem
Schoße birgt und wie alle solche Zeiten geschichtlich groß ist,
sollte die Dichtung, auch die unterhaltende, sich zu großen Stoffen
wenden." (ibid., p. 445).
[20] Lemke, p. 445.
[21] Bernt von Heiseler: Segen und Unsegen des
historischen Romans. In: Das Deutsche Wort 11 (1935) No. 35, p. 6-11;
here: p. 6.
[22] Wilhelm Löw: Dichtung und
Geschichte. Ein Rückblick. In: Nationalsozialistische
Bibliographie 4 (1939) No. 7, p. 61-64; here: p. 61.
[23] Hans Hermann Wilhelm: Soll der Dichter
aus der Zeit entfliehen? In: Der deutsche Schriftsteller (1940) vol. 5,
p. 109-110; here: p. 109.
[24] Gerhart Schmidt: Anmerkungen zum
historischen Roman. In: Die Neue Literatur 41 (1940), p. 132.
[25] Georg Lukács: Der Kampf zwischen
Liberalismus und Demokratie im Spiegel des historischen Romans der deutschen
Antifaschisten. In: Internationale Literatur 8 (1938) No. 5, p. 63-83;
here: p. 63.
[26] Deutsches Exilarchiv 1933-1945.
Katalog der Bücher und Broschüren. Stuttgart 1989
(Sonderveröffentlichungen der Deutschen Bibliothek 16).
[27] There has at least been some research by
Norbert Otto Eke and Dagmar Olasz-Eke for the time between 1815 and 1830. It
provides very good data on the overall production of the German-language novel
at the time. These data corroborate the fact that the rise of the historical
novel in the 1820s, while indeed being paralleled by a general rise in
production, at the same time multiplied its share in the overall production of
novels. Similar assumptions might apply to later developments. Cf. Norbert Otto
Eke und Dagmar Olasz-Eke: Bibliographie. Der deutsche Roman 1815-1830.
Standortnachweise, Rezensionen, Forschungsüberblick. München 1994
(Corvey-Studien: Zur Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts 3).
For a confrontation of the data derived from this investigation with the
historical novels of the restoration period see Kurt Habitzel and Günter
Mühlberger: Gewinner und Verlierer. Der historische Roman und sein Beitrag
zum Literatursystem der Restaurationszeit (1815-1848/49). In: IASL, 21
(1996) No. 1, p. 91-123; here: p. 94 f.
[28] Hartmut Eggert: Studien zur
Wirkungsgeschichte des deutschen historischen Romans 1850-1875. Frankfurt
am Main 1971 (Studien zur Philosophie und Literatur des neunzehnten
Jahrhunderts 14), p. 204.
[29] Kurt Habitzel: Der historische Roman
der DDR. Dissertation. Innsbruck 1995.
[30] Cf. Kurt Habitzel, Günter
Mühlberger: Gewinner und Verlierer. (1996).
[31] Georg Jäger: Die Bestände
deutscher Leihbibliotheken zwischen 1815 und 1860. Interpretation statistischer
Befunde. In: Buchhandel und Literatur. Festschrift für Herbert G.
Göpfert zum 75. Geburtstag. Wiesbaden 1982 (Beiträge zum Buch-
und Bibliothekswesen 20), p. 247-313. - Cf.: Alberto Martino: Die deutsche
Leihbibliothek. Geschichte einer literarischen Institution (1756-1914).
Wiesbaden 1990 (Beiträge zum Buch- und Bibliothekswesen 29).
[32] "Our pleasures derived from the
historical novel are clouded by the bitter lessons that history has taught us.
Where petits bourgeois - inspired by colossal epics such as Quo Vadis -
made up theirs minds to live dangerously, a literary genre that obviously made
capital out of the foolishness of people had to fall into
disrepute."
Wolfgang Grözinger: Geschichtsbewußtsein und
Geschichtsroman. In: Frankfurter Hefte (1962) No. 27, p. 840-846; here:
p. 840.
[33] Thomas Wörtche: Gegenbilder.
Historische Romane. Hintergründe eines Booms. In: Freitag (11 April
1997) No. 16. Cf.: Inge Zenker-Baltes: Minnesang und Hexerei. Wenn die
Gegenwart zu wünschen übrigläßt, sehnt sich der Leser nach
der Renaissance. Der historische Roman lebt und boomt - ob trivial oder auf
hohem literarischem [sic!] Niveau. In: Deutsches Allgemeines
Sonntagsblatt (4 February 1994) No. 5. Cf. History. Ein Genre boomt.
Plädoyer für den guten alten Schmöker. In: Buchkultur
(1997) No. 45. It is quite apparent that the rediscovery of the historical
novel also occurs against a nationalist background that is only too well known.
This is exemplified in an article by Rudolf Pörtner in the German daily
newspaper Die Welt: "Geschichte ist nach den Jahrzehnten historischer
Abstinenz, die den Deutschen kraft Umerziehungsdiktat 1945 verordnet wurde,
wieder 'in'. Sie hat, zumal im Leben des deutschen Bildungsbürgers, ihre
katalysierende Rolle im geistigen Stoffwechsel wieder übernommen. Und sie
hat damit - selbstverständlich - auch die literarisch-belletristische
Aufarbeitung der Historie in ihre angestammten Rechte eingesetzt. Immerhin
blickt der Geschichtsroman in Deutschland, ob als Import oder
Eigengewächs, auf eine glorreiche Geschichte zurück." Rudolf
Pörtner: Die Kaiserin, die aus dem Zirkus kam. In: Die Welt (2
October 1990) No. 230.