KURSCHNER'S " LITTER1TUR-K A.LENDER."*
To the various political and literary prophecies of Heine, which have been fulfilled in our own days, belongs his pre- diction that with the improvement of the political state of Germany, the position of German authors will mend in pro- portion. Since the momentous year 1870, that prediction has, in a great measure, been accomplished. The authors are now better paid in Germany, and treated with greater respect than before. A number of literary Associations and Vereine have been formed to protect and promote the interests of German writers, and to raise their status in the social scale. It is true there have sprung up some rival literary unions, and we sometimes get confused between the Schriftstellerverband and the Schriftstellerverbund ; but on the whole, the members of the literary guild in Germany live in peaceful companion- ship. Even their books are now, as a role, better printed and more handsomely got-up than was the case upwards of twenty years ago. Whether the intrinsic worth of German literature is now superior, or at least equal, to that of the period when the works of Goethe, Leasing, or Schiller were printed on blotting-paper, and the authors frequently received no honorarium at all, we will not investigate now ; but it may be hoped that the material prosperity of the literary com- munity in Germany will, in time, lead on also to " spiritual " excellence.
One of the strongest bonds of union in the German literary world was formed in 1878 by Professor Joseph Kiirschner, with the publication of his Litteratur-Kalender. This is not so much a "Literary Calender " as a "Literary Directory" or " Register," or rather an " Annual Literary and Bio- graphical Lexicon." The contents of the beautifully got-up book are so varied that space will not allow us to do more than describe here its principal features. The first part con- tains, among other interesting matter, a complete account of all the general literary unions and foundations, and also of the local literary societies, in Germany proper, and in the German parts of Austria. Then comes a Litterarische Chronik, comprising the melancholy register of the writers who died in the preceding year, and a record of all the official dis- tinctions bestowed on authors and scholars, and likewise of the celebrations—rather numerous in Germany—of their academical jubilees, birthdays, &c. The second part, form- ing the balk of the book, gives in alphabetical order the names of all the German authors living at home or abroad,
• Deut cher Litteratur.Kalender, auf clue Jahr 1892. Herausgsgebe, von Joseph Kurschner. Viersehnter Jahrgang. Stuttgart: J. Karsohner's Se'het. verlag.
together with the year of their birth and place of their actual residence, and the titles of their works. By means of special, cleverly applied symbols, such as a pair of scales for I iw, two crossed swords for military literature, and a cross for theology, &c., the speciality of each author is briefly and distinctly indicated. Our readers will be able to form some idea of the formidable number of German authors, if we tell them that the list of their names fills 1,263 closely, though clearly, printed pages of two columns each. A list of all the German publishing houses, with their addresses, telephone numbers, date of their establishment, together with a state- ment of their special departments, is then given in 67 pages. This list is followed by another, recording the titles of all literary periodicals, and also of political newspapers provided with a feuilleton. The volume concludes with an alphabetical list of all the towns where there are German theatres, giving at the same time the names of their lessees, and, finally, with a register of all German literary agencies.
To this year's issue the editor has added a small companion volume giving a mass of useful information respecting the laws of copyright and other points of great importance to literary men. This little volume, which will in future be published in uniform size with the Litteratur-Kaleneler, concludes with an alphabetical list of the places all over the world harbouring German writers, with the names of the latter inserted. Thus we find that there live in London not less than thirty-one German authors, among whom there are five ladies, who are distinguished in the list from their male colleagues by an asterisk.
Our readers will see from the above general description the extreme usefulness for all who write on, or occupy themselves with, contemporary German literature, of Professor Kiirsch- Der's Literary Calendar, which, we had almost forgotten to add, is annually adorned by some portrait or portraits of distinguished authors. A more systematically arranged book of reference, or one more complete in itself, we have rarely met with. Let us add that if we have spoken at length of an annual for 1892 towards the close of the year, it is because it forms part of a serial publication, and thus, by noticing this year's issue, we call at the same time the reader's attention to that of next year. There is also another reason for our noticing the book. We believe that a publication similar to that devised and carried out by Professor Kiirschner, would be expedient for this country, and so we should feel inclined to call on Mr. Walter Besant "to go and do likewise."
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