Showing posts with label Tagebuch einer Verlorenen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tagebuch einer Verlorenen. Show all posts

Friday, December 23, 2016

The shocking edition of Diary of a Lost Girl

Yesterday, I received something very, very special in the mail - my recent order of a scarce edition of Tagebuch einer Verlorenen / Diary of a Lost Girl. Wow, what a score! It came from Germany, and is in beautiful condition, near fine. I have been hunting for this edition for some time now, ever since I worked on the Louise Brooks edition of Diary of a Lost Girl, which was published in 2010.



This illustrated edition of Margarete Bohme's book contains dozens of illustrations, some of them strangle, and some surprisingly risque.



If I am decoding his bookplate correctly, the owner bought the book in 1917. Also laid in were 4 scarce postcards from the 1918 film version of Tagebuch einer Verlorenen. Each of the postcards depict Erna Morena, who played Thymain (the role played by Louise Brooks in 1929); two postcards also depict Conrad Veidt, who starred in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Casablanca.



I had read that the book in its original German was far more suggestive than the English language translation. The owner, a close reader, discretely penciled in notes, like the cost of prostitutes (notice the amounts penciled next to each portrait below).




He also penciled a comment to the right of the last image: "Morbus gallicus," which translates as "The French disease," or syphilis.  No wonder Walter Benjamin described this book as something like “a complete inventory of the sexual trade.”

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Tagebuch einer Verlorenen poster

Speaking of Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, or The Diary of a Lost Girl (see my earlier post), I recently came across this image of an early 20th century German poster and would like to more about it. Anyone got a clue? I might hazard a guess and mention that this might be a poster for the stage play adaption of Bohme's novel, or possibly the lost first film adaption, from 1912, of the book, or something else all together. This is the highest resolution scan I have. 


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