In Prague to Stay

After completing his studies in Pilsen and enjoying a vacation with his parents in Růžkovy Lhotice, Smetana resolved to dedicate his life to music and continue his studies in Prague. In August 1843, he visited Mladá Boleslav, where the Kolář family had recently moved, and his determination only grew stronger. Reuniting with Kateřina after months of separation brought him immense joy:

Upon returning home, Smetana faced the challenging task of sharing his aspiration for a musical career with his family. Initially opposed, his father eventually relented, though not without expressing concern for Smetana's future and imposing numerous suggestions and conditions. Like any well-meaning parent, he hoped his son would pursue a more stable path, perhaps as an official or by taking over the family business. Support from Professor Smetana, who believed his cousin could bring glory to the Czech nation through music, was crucial in bolstering Smetana's confidence. Although his father agreed in principle, he provided no financial support, forcing Smetana into years of struggle and hardship—challenges he would overcome through sheer determination.

In the decade between the publication of Der Nachsommer (Indian Summer) in November 1857 and his death in January 1868, Stifter produced a body of work whose idiosyncratic style and peculiar narrative mode set it apart from his previous writing. In these texts, a starker and more austere form dominated by a highly artificial language of staid rhythms and methodical regularity contributes to a strikingly desolate and often plodding prose marked by ritual and repetition. The tendency toward recursive narration along with the stubborn rearticulation of speech acts, gestures, and superfluous actions result in stories that are empty of conventional content but at the same time full—of narrative excursiveness, of attention to minutiae and mannerism, of language in and of itself. The linguistic excess of these works contrasts sharply with their scarcity of action and significant occurrences, making the reading experience trying, even for admirers of Stifter's famously eventless style. Indeed, for this reason, the late work has until recently often been sidelined, if not simply ignored, by critics and readers alike.

This volume forms the first element of the fourth volume of the new history of the Isle of Man, produced under the auspices of the Centre for Manx Studies at the University of Liverpool. It covers the period from the early fifteenth century to 1830 and is focused on political and constitutional aspects of the Island's history. Companion volumes covering the evolution of the natural landscape (edited by Richard Chiverrell and Geoffrey Thomas), the medieval period (edited by Seán Duffy and Harold Mytum), and the modern period (edited by John Belchem) have previously been published by Liverpool University Press.

As will immediately be clear, this volume and its companion are a collaborative effort involving a large group of scholars from the Island and beyond. In some cases, their contributions are worthy of particular note as we record with sadness that they did not live to enjoy the publication of their work: William Cain, Ulla Corkill, Nigel G. Crowe, Jennifer Platten, J.R. Roscow, R.L. Thomson and Nigel Yates. This preface also allows for recognition to be given to those who have helped coordinate the efforts of the contributors, especially amongst the editorial team Prof. Harold Mytum who has deftly maintained the momentum of the project overall alongside other recently published or soon-to-be-published volumes and the other work of the Centre for Manx Studies, and Dr Mike Hoy who has taken particular trouble to support the development of the Island-based contributions and played a pivotal role in coordinating support for the project there, including working with Charles Guard (formerly Administrator of the Manx Heritage Foundation, now Culture Vannin, whose generosity and commitment to the project is also acknowledged) on the identification of the extensive range of illustrations which support the text and ensuring the necessary permissions were secured.

The eighteenth century was, in many respects, a golden age of organ building in Britain. Many churches and cathedrals had lost their instruments during the English Civil Wars, and while there had been a move to replace them following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, most of these same institutions sought to improve or replace these instruments over the course of the eighteenth century. Others had new organs installed with the aim of improving the quality of music that accompanied worship. This increase in demand led to a growth in the number of organ builders.

In many cases, those engaged to construct or rebuild these instruments would reside a considerable distance from the town or city in which the organ was located and were unable to provide regular maintenance. Some organists were able to tune their own instruments, and perhaps even make minor repairs; for instance, Henry Valentine, organist of St Martin's Church, Stamford Baron, Northamptonshire, was in 1725 paid ‘for mending the organ’. Even so, organs would still require periodic servicing from a professional builder. For that reason, the offer from of work from a visiting organ builder could be a Godsend, saving on the cost of engaging a more distant professional. In some cases, however, people would be engaged to make repairs without limited proof of their ability.

Aberdeen's St Paul's chapel had an organ built by John Donaldson of Newcastle. The piano-maker Stephen Moore was given permission to repair this instrument in 1798.

Die Mappe meines Urgroßvaters (My Great-Grandfather's Notebook; hereafter: Mappe) is perhaps the greatest example of Adalbert Stifter's notoriously finicky writing habits. The text first appeared in installments in the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode (Viennese Journal for Art, Literature, Theater, and Fashion) in 1841–42 (hereafter Journalfassung), and Stifter then reworked it for inclusion in the third volume of his Studien collection (Studies) in 1847 (hereafter Studienfassung). Stifter was typical for authors of the nineteenth century in republishing his works in book form, but his republications often comprised radically different works replete with new titles and major insertions, deletions, and emendations within the text. Nevertheless, the second publication usually marked the end of his work on his stories. This is not the case with the Mappe. Stifter revisited the text again in 1864, hoping to turn it into a standalone, two-volume work. After scrapping the third version, he attempted a fourth version in 1867, which he continued to edit in early 1868 on his deathbed. Despite some substantial changes across all four versions, the basic plot remains the same. The unnamed narrator returns to his childhood home and discovers his great-grandfather's notebook in the attic, whose contents he excerpts and transmits to the nondiagetic reader of Stifter's text. The great-grandfather Augustinus, known simply as the Doctor, had picked up the habit of journaling from his neighbor, the Obrist (Colonel), who consoles and soon befriends him after an aborted suicide attempt. The Doctor records his thoughts and daily events, and then seals the text. After several years have elapsed, he breaks the seals and rereads his entries, and is able better to appreciate his personal growth and the unexpected directions his life has taken.

Jan Löwenbach's biography of Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, originally titled Bedřich Smetana: Composer and Leader, is a remarkable scholarly achievement— decades in the making during the tumultuous middle of the twentieth century, shaped by the end of World War II and the onset of the Cold War, yet left unpublished and forgotten in a California archive until its rediscovery in the early 2020s. This introduction outlines Löwenbach's career and his lifelong dedication to Smetana's legacy. It also traces the complex history of the biography's creation and publication and highlights the significant contributions of several key figures: Löwenbach's wife, Vilma Löwenbach (née Zucker; 1891–1975), The New York Times critic Olin Downes (1886–1955), English translator Ruth Martin (1914–2000), and Czech American composer Karel Boleslav Jirák (1891–1972).

Given the fragmented nature of the archival material and the absence of a single authoritative source, the present editors and translators have substantially revised the original texts of Löwenbach, aligning this edition with extant Czech and English drafts—and, where necessary, with external sources. At the same time, we have aimed to preserve the biography's readability by avoiding extensive editorial commentary. In this process, we see ourselves as collaborators in a long, layered history of authorship, joining a lineage of contributors whose work is inseparable from Löwenbach's own.

—in which we consider the view Döblin took of human personality and the ways he presented it in particular works. Here, after clarifying the reasons for focusing on the notion of “person” rather than “self” or “ego,” we take a close look at two of his early novels—Die drei Sprünge des Wang-lun (1916; The Three Leaps of Wang Lun, 1991) and Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfturbine (1918; Wadzek's Fight against the Steam Turbine, 2020)—in the first section, and at how he evokes the character of family relations in two later works, Pardon wird nicht gegeben (1935; Men without Mercy, 1976) and Hamlet (1956), in the second and third. The chapter then concludes with an exploration of personalities, relationships and the sense of human destiny in works of the 1920s, including in particular Berlin Alexanderplatz.

A Social Animal

The opening pages of Berlin Alexanderplatz present a human figure in abject isolation. Released from Tegel Prison, Franz Biberkopf lingers outside the gates, paralysed with fear. The way he is experiencing this moment is indicated by an expression normally used for animals being returned to the wild: “Man setzte ihn wieder aus” (They were setting him free again, BA 15). While the predictable ordered routine continues for those who remain in captivity, he must confront the intimidating uncertainties of life outside. We are told that his punishment is just beginning.

The Festival World up to 1850

As George IV and William IV brought the Hanoverian succession to an end, and Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, so significant developments were under way in the choral life of the country. On the festival scene, while the Three Choirs continued in its by now traditional way, others were being more experimental, although few festivals managed to survive on a longterm basis. Three centres in particular, Birmingham, Norwich and York, attracted national attention, and of these Birmingham would turn out to be the most significant. York had held occasional festivals from 1769, including a four-day celebration in 1791, but it was the 1820s that saw it attempt grandiose affairs on a scale to match the magnificence of the Minster. For the first ‘Yorkshire Musical Festival’ in 1823 a choir of 273 was accompanied by an orchestra of 180 – easily the largest forces seen since the London Handel Commemorations, and mostly coming from the North. Of the choir's 64 sopranos, only 13 were boys, reflecting the long northern tradition of women's participation in choral activity; the 55-strong alto line, however, was still an all-male preserve. Handel continued to dominate the choral offerings, although parts of The Creation, The Seasons, and Mozart's Requiem also featured. Three further festivals followed in 1825, 1828 and 1835, with even larger numbers of performers – shades of London again – but there was severe criticism of the standard of the choir in 1835. The Times reported that ‘the trebles were often inclined to take a time of their own, and run riot’. A letter to the editor claimed that the poor performance was ‘entirely owing to the inattention of the conductors in the selection of the chorus singers and the total neglect of rehearsals’. Taken together with problems of positioning so many performers, this may have been one factor in bringing the series to an end, and it would be 1910 before York again experienced another large-scale festival.

Dense woodlands graced the rolling hills and mountain slopes connecting the coastal plains of northern and central Angola to the interior highlands. Botanically known as laurel forest, they formed a natural habitat for several varieties of robusta coffee (Coffea canephora). Tis forest landscape stretched from Mbanza Kongo (São Salvador) in the north to Seles in the south, at altitudes between 350 and 1,200 meters, with coffee growing best in areas between 800 and 1,000 meters above sea level. The river Cuanza divided this distinctive ecosystem into a northern and a southern zone. Because the transition from coast to plateau was more gradual in the north than in the south, woodlands were more extensive in the northern zone, where dense laurel forest changed into a forest-savanna mosaic towards the west. Tis area contained the oldest coffee-producing regions in Angola, which during the twentieth century were incorporated in the Cuanza-Norte and Congo administrative districts.

Botanists knew these rugged woodlands also as the ‘cloud forest’, as the hills attracted condensation building up in the lower areas, while they shielded vegetation from dry winds blowing from the east. As a Scottish visitor to the region noted in 1854, ‘every evening clouds come rolling in great masses from the mountains in the west [and] generally remain on the hills till the morning is well spent’.1 Vegetation depended for water more on clouds than on rainfall, which was relatively modest in the region. There was an upper stratum of trees growing up to forty metres in height that shielded a lower storey of shrubs including natural coffee stands, which thrived in the humid and relatively mild climate of the montane forest. The forest canopy provided shade that kept soils moist and depressed weed growth, it reduced variations in temperature between day and night, and it protected coffee trees and soils from sun, wind, and occasional heavy rain.

Claudia Pineiro (1960–), the ‘First Lady of Argentinian Crime Writing’, is a leading figure in contemporary Latin American crime fiction, part of the current ‘noir wave’ of Argentinian women writers, and a highly visible spokesperson on women's issues, participating in the ‘green tide’ that successfully campaigned for free, safe, legal abortion in Argentina, and the #NiUnaMenos movement against feminicide. Her opening speech at the 2018 International Buenos Aires Book Fair outlines the writer's responsibility to question the social status quo, and she urges an ethical stance on educating the next generation to read – and think – critically: ‘When we disagree, if we don't have words then we speak with our body, with aggression, with weapons. Reading is a vital tool for acquiring skills in dialogue and in searching for creative solutions to old conflicts’.

It is within this ethical framework of writing that encourages the reader to reflect critically and articulate new responses to old conflicts (such as reproductive rights or religion vs secularism) that I situate Pineiro's crime novels, which ‘emphasize […] social dysfunction more than the crime itself ‘, focusing on ‘the crime behind the crime’, as Pineiro puts it.

In what other ways did the painted histories of the Welles-Ros Bible map the landscape of a baron's world, both the outer world of human relations and action and the inner spiritual, psychic and emotional worlds? Marriage and sexuality, a key concern of the Song of Songs initial, is also a principal theme of the initial for Hosea (see Fig. 93). Most of the fourteen chapters of this Prophetic book comprise oracles addressed to the declining Northern Kingdom of Israel, whose people had forsaken Yahweh and turned to other gods. Christian exegetes focused overwhelmingly on Hosea's first three chapters, which concern the prophet's scandalous marriage to Gomer and the calamities that befell his family. As the Welles-Ros text puts it, the Lord calls the prophet to “take a lecherous woman as your wife and make children of fornications because a lecherous land will sin before God (alt.: “will sin twice over”)” (Hos 1.2). Augustine saw in Gomer a prefiguration of the sinful woman who washed and anointed Jesus’ feet (Lk 7.36–50), and he and other writers interpreted Hosea's and Gomer's marriage allegorically as Christ calling and sanctifying the Church. In his Commentary on the Twelve Minor Prophets (392–406), Jerome interpreted Hosea 1–3 as signifying the rejection of Israel, yet he also justified Hosea's actions at a more “realworld” level:

“Melodrama” is not a word usually associated with Adalbert Stifter. The author whose third chapter of his most famous novel infamously turns on the question of whether or not it will rain, the author who devotes pages upon pages of text to detailed descriptions of gardening techniques or parquetry or snowdrifts, the author who seems himself to have lived a life of domestic tedium and bureaucratic obligation, broken up only by the pleasure of his copious meals, is not exactly known for his flamboyant emotionality or action-packed plots. While Stifter's peers admired his eye for detail and patient attunement to nature, they also criticized what they saw as a certain pedantic fastidiousness and a neglect of genuine human concerns in favor of a timeless, God’s-eye view of the world. In the age of the bourgeois tragedy and the social novel, Stifter, so ran the general consensus, was an outlier. At worst, his writings were deemed ploddingly reactionary and insipid; at best, they were seen as the work of a talented if limited miniaturist: masterly, at times even lovely— but dull.