A Rare First Edition in the Original Author-Illustrated Brochure

LASKER-SCHÜLER, Else. Hebräische Balladen. Berlin: Alfred Richard Meyer, 1913.

A rare and beautiful first edition of one of the defining works of German-Jewish Expressionist poetry: Else Lasker-Schüler’s Hebräische Balladen, issued in 1913 as part of Alfred Richard Meyer’s avant-garde Lyrische Flugblätter series and preserved here in its original author-illustrated brochure, elegantly housed within a fine full maroon morocco binding.

Physically slight yet poetically immense, Hebräische Balladen stands among the most concentrated expressions of Lasker-Schüler’s visionary literary world: biblical memory, mystical longing, exile, erotic intensity, sacred imagination, and poetic self-mythology fused into a language unlike anything else in twentieth-century German literature. The survival of the fragile original brochure with Lasker-Schüler’s own cover illustration gives the present copy exceptional literary and visual appeal.

Edition & Physical Description

First edition.

Eight leaves. Original cord-stitched brochure with cover illustration by Else Lasker-Schüler. Issued in Berlin by Alfred Richard Meyer in 1913 as number 25 of the Lyrische Flugblätter series. Format approximately 18 × 14 cm.

The original brochure is preserved within a fine full maroon morocco binding with gilt-stamped cover title, gilt spine title, gilt year to the lower board, and green silk ribbon marker. Importantly, the fragile original publication remains removable from the protective binding without damage.

The elegant morocco case gives the ephemeral Expressionist booklet the physical dignity and permanence appropriate to a major work of literary modernism while preserving the integrity of the original issue.

Else Lasker-Schüler

Else Lasker-Schüler remains one of the most singular figures in twentieth-century literature.

Poet, draftswoman, performer, visionary, and self-created myth, she occupied the centre of the Berlin avant-garde before the First World War and moved among figures such as Karl Kraus, Gottfried Benn, Franz Werfel, Georg Trakl, Oskar Kokoschka, Franz Marc, and Herwarth Walden. Yet even within that extraordinary milieu, her voice remained radically unique.

Her poetry fuses biblical imagery, dream logic, erotic longing, mystical intensity, Jewish sacred memory, and private mythology into a lyrical language of startling emotional immediacy. She transformed loneliness, exile, love, poverty, and spiritual hunger into a personal symbolic universe populated by poetic alter egos such as Jussuf of Egypt, Tino of Baghdad, and the Prince of Thebes.

For Lasker-Schüler, poetry and life were inseparable acts of imaginative self-creation.

Hebräische Balladen

Published in 1913, Hebräische Balladen marks one of the high points of Lasker-Schüler’s poetic achievement and one of the defining works of German-Jewish modernism.

The poems draw deeply upon biblical figures and Hebrew sacred memory, yet they do so in a manner entirely unlike conventional religious poetry. Abraham, Joseph, Esther, Moses, Isaac, and Jacob appear not as distant scriptural characters but as emotionally immediate visionary presences charged with modern psychological and spiritual intensity.

The “ballads” are dramatic less in narrative structure than in emotional and symbolic force. The Hebrew Bible becomes a personal landscape of exile, chosenness, suffering, longing, divine intimacy, betrayal, and revelation.

The figure of Joseph held especially profound importance for Lasker-Schüler, who later adopted the poetic identity of “Jussuf of Egypt.” In these poems, the dreamer cast out by the world becomes a central symbolic figure: solitary, wounded, visionary, and transformed through suffering.

Appearing on the eve of the First World War, the collection now reads with extraordinary prophetic force. Themes of exile, alienation, displacement, spiritual homelessness, and survival resonate with haunting historical intensity in retrospect.

Karl Kraus

The printed dedication “Karl Kraus zum Geschenk” gives the volume additional literary resonance.

Karl Kraus, the formidable Viennese critic and editor of Die Fackel, was among Lasker-Schüler’s earliest and most important champions. He published her work, defended her genius publicly, and supported her during periods of financial hardship.

The dedication therefore places the fragile booklet directly within the central literary networks of pre-war German-speaking modernism. The copy becomes not merely a first edition, but an artifact of the intimate artistic relationships that shaped Expressionist literary culture.

The Author’s Illustration

The original wrapper illustration by Lasker-Schüler herself is especially important.

Her drawings were never merely decorative additions to the poems but extensions of the same symbolic and visionary world. Image and text function together: poetic identity becomes visual emblem, and biblical mythology merges with private self-fashioning.

Copies preserving the original illustrated wrappers are therefore especially desirable, since they preserve both dimensions of Lasker-Schüler’s artistic imagination simultaneously.

Condition

Very good to near fine overall.

The original brochure remains complete and remarkably well preserved for such a fragile pre-war publication. Leaves lightly toned throughout, as usual, with minor edge wear, gentle waviness, slight creasing, and some rectangular offsetting or shadowing to facing leaves. Small closed marginal tear or nick to one leaf without affecting text or illustration.

The later maroon morocco binding is fine, elegant, and highly protective while allowing the original booklet to remain removable without damage.

A rare and highly evocative first edition of one of the central works of German-Jewish Expressionist poetry, preserving the original author-illustrated brochure within an exceptional modern morocco binding.

References

Wilpert-Gühring² 8; Raabe 182.8; Josch D 42.1; Raabe, Zeitschriften, 144, 25. Lyrische Flugblätter, no. 25.