This 1898 Lost Gem Of Oriental Romanticism Is Intoxicating

by Stephen J. Gertz

The following is my Historical Note to a new translation of Haschisch by Fritz Lemmermayer, originally issued in 1898 and now published for the first time in English by Process Media in association with RKS Library Editions. The black and white illustrations here (as well as the original cover art in color) are by Gottfried Sieben and are taken from the first German edition. All of the striking and plentiful original illustrations are present (and faithfully reproduced) in this exciting new edition along with many supplemental illustrations that illuminate the history of the book. - SJG.

Some novels die and justifiably remain dead. A few are resurrected by bookish saviors and, re-examined, rise to deserved new life. Haschisch by Fritz Lemmermayer is one such literary Lazarus. 

During the nineteenth century Europe was infatuated with the Orient in general and the Muslim world in particular. The Ottoman Empire, which in the late 17th century beseiged Vienna and put all of Christian Europe at risk, had receded as a threat. Translations of The Arabian Nights appeared in French (1704) and English (1706), kindling popular interest in the Orient. Diplomatic and commercial ties with Istanbul, the Ottoman capital, increased during the 18th century and Turquerie, an Orientalist style imitative of Turkish culture and art, had developed into a popular fashion by century’s end. By the beginning of the 19th century literary Romanticism had established itself. Coleridge, Byron, and Shelley, amongst others, lured by the exotic East, indulged, to popular success, their fascination for the foreign in their work. Oriental Romanticism, which captured their fantasies, was the result.

By mid-century the European craze for all things Oriental was at its height. The paintings and color-plate albums of Amadeo Preziosi, a Maltese count and artist who had become a resident of Istanbul, provided a lush feast for Europeans hungry for visual representations of this strange world of unusual costume, customs, and, let us not mince words, alluring women, mysterious with titillating possibility behind the veil. And, too, the use of opium and hashish in the East had captured the Romantic imagination as a gateway to the Oriental mind and fantastic visions not otherwise available to Western man. The exotic East possessed a strong sensuous undercurrent and it will come as no surprise that a genre of erotic literature arose in parallel to Oriental Romanticism to satisfy the European male’s desire, The Lustful Turk (1828) being an early example. The region was perceived to be an erogenous zone.

In Germany, Romanticism tended to look inward to Teutonic myth rather than outward to the East. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, a small group of Neo-Romantics, led by litterateur Fritz Lemmermayer in protest to modern realism, turned their eyes toward the Orient. Haschisch, Lemmermayer’s 1898 novel, is not only Oriental Romanticism’s last gasp, but its acme, the literary culmination of two centuries of feverish thought and interest in the exoticism of the East.

We would not know this, however, without the scholarship of Dr. R.K. Siegel who rescued from obscurity this novel, a book lost in the wake of literary modernism and forgotten almost as soon as it was published. It’s a book that, as an antiquarian bookseller, I first became aware of in the mid-1980s through its 1911 translation into, of all languages, Yiddish. The cover art was sensational. A few of us in the trade who had a special interest in the literature of psychotropic drugs were riveted but, preoccupied with quotidian needs, did not have the necessary time to study and determine just what this book was. Enter Dr. Siegel, a dedicated collector-scholar, a breed of book lover that has so often (and to no financial gain whatsoever) devoted precious time to perform the bibliographical spadework for books in general and orphaned literature in particular. It was he who uncovered the first edition in German and then made the study of the novel’s history a personal mission. The results are here and marvelous.

Amadeo Preziosi, Odalisque.

A word on the novel’s illustrations by Sieben. He was unquestionably influenced by Preziosi’s artwork. Stamboul: Souvenirs d’Orient, Preziosi’s widely and wildly popular color-plate masterpiece first appeared in 1858, its fourth and final issue published in 1883 (as Stamboul: Meours et Costumes) to satisfy unabated demand. When Europeans imagined the Orient it was Preziosi’s imagery that they referenced, particularly his women of Istanbul. The faces of the women in Haschisch are directly those of Preziosi’s women. Preziosi’s image of a harem woman, languid and alluring as she is attended by her servants, tempts us with come-hither eyes as she smokes a hookah. Is she enraptured by hashish, or merely smoking tobacco? It is left to the observer to decide.

I think it safe to say, however, that readers will not have to make a decision regarding the novel’s vivid and operatic narrative. Haschisch is a literary cloud of intoxicating smoke, a phantasmagoria in print, once forgotten but now unforgettable.

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N.B. The politics of Oriental Romanticism are not germane to this post beyond that almost every 19th century stereotype of the exotic East is found in Haschisch. Romanticism's preoccupation with love, sex, and death gets full play here. Throw in exotic drugs and Muslims and Edward Said would have had a field day with it had he lived to see this publication, which is quite something with production values that belie its cost, and a degree of scholarship that is remarkable. Dr. Siegel is a model literary detective; his informative introduction and notes cover the waterfront. It appears he hasn't missed a thing, which would be a bad thing if the story behind the book wasn't so interesting.

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LEMMERMAYER, Fritz. Hashish: The Lost Legend. The First English Translation of a Great Oriental Romance. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Ronald K. Siegel, PH.D. Translations by Hermann Schibli (German); Mindle Crystal Gross (Yiddish). Historical Note by Stephen J. Gertz. Port Townsend, WA: Process Media in association with RKS Library Editions, 2013 [i.e. Feb. 2014].

First edition in English, limited to 418 copies numbered and signed by Ronald K. Siegel, PH.D. Quarto (10 x 6 1/2 inches). xx, 118 pp. on heavy glossy paper. Illustrated throughout in black & white and color. Full blue suede cloth with color illustration laid-on. Gilt lettered spine. Housed in a red suede cloth slipcase. $65.

 

Full Disclosure: I sit on the Editorial Board of RKS Library Editions, along with William Dailey, Michael Horowitz, and Steven B. Karch, M.D., FFFLM.

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Rare Edition of Lawrence Of Arabia $112,000 - $144,000 At Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

A scarce "incomplete" Presentation copy of the Subscriber's ("Cranwell") edition of T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, one of only thirty-two of a total edition of 211 copies and inscribed at the time of publication to writer E.M. Forster, is being offered by Sotheby's in their English Literature, History, Children's Books & Illustrations sale on December 12, 2012.

It is estimated to sell for  $112,000 - 144,000 (£70,000 - £90,000). That's $16,000 - $20,571 per pillar.

The book, in which Lawrence wrote of the Arab revolt, 1916-1918, against the Ottoman Empire during World War I and his role in organizing and leading it, set in stone the  legendary adventures of Lawrence of Arabia that emerged from the war's news coverage and stoked the mythos that had grown around one of the most fascinating, complex, and enigmatic characters of his or any other time.

"In 1913 Lawrence wrote a book entitled Seven Pillars of Wisdom. It was designed to cover seven Middle Eastern cities,,,The manuscript was burned in 1914....Lawrence began writing his version of the desert war in 1919...A major portion, if not all, of this first edition was lost at Reading Station in late 1919. A second version was written in London 1919-1920 in a period of three months. Lawrence burned this in 1922...The third manuscript was written in London, Jeddah and Amman, 1921, and in London 1922. This third manuscript, some 330,000 words long, was donated to the Bodleian Library" (O'Brien).

Lawrence had a eight copies printed of that third version in 1922, the first English ("Oxford") edition. He reworked the text 1923-1926, during which time he loaned copies of the 1922 version to various people for critical comment,  E.M. Forster amongst them.

"E.M. Forster was one of the most influential readers of Seven Pillars of Wisdom during the time that Lawrence was cutting down the 1922 ‘Oxford’ text to the abridged version that he issued to subscribers in 1926. Forster offered far more than general praise and admiration. He provided expert criticism of specific writing faults. The two became friends and remained in contact until Lawrence’s death in 1935" (Jeremy Wilson for Castle Hill Press, E.M. Forster and T.E. Lawrence, upon the publication of the Lawrence-Forster letters).

Despite the enormous amount of time, effort, craft and artistry that Lawrence invested in writing this classic his inscription to Forster modestly reads: "Not good enough, but as good, apparently, as I can do."

This, the elaborate "Cranwell" or privately printed Subscriber's (second English) edition - a text of 280,000 words - was published in 1926. Of the total of 211 copies, 170 were complete and 32 were incomplete with three plates lacking, a version "presented to the men who had served with him in Arabia and who were not able to pay the high price asked for the complete issue" (German Reed). the complete issue priced at £31 10s, a princely sum in 1926. The final nine copies were "spoils," i.e. plates only. Each copy was bound differently with various binders employed: for Bumpus (by Riviere); Best; Sangorski and Sutcliffe (as here); Harrison; Charles McLeish; Roger de Coverly & Sons; and Henry T. Wood.

Presentation copy inscribed by the author to E.M. Forster,
“E.M.F.  from T.E.S. ['T.E. Shaw' Lawrence's post-War pseudonym]:
Not good enough, but as good, apparently, as I can do. | I.XII.26"
on preliminary blank together with later inscription from E.M. Forster
to Bob Buckingham, “R.J. Buckingham  from  E.M. Forster 20-1-68”.

No incomplete copies (aside from the nine plates-only "spoil" copies the rarest of the "Cranwell" edition) have come to auction within the last thirty-six years. One of the 170 complete copies sold earlier this year at Bonham's for $65,000 (incl. premium). Only a small handful of copies of the first ("Oxford") English edition of 1922 are in private hands. Should one miraculously find its way to market it will surely fetch upwards of $500,000.

In 1927, Lawrence published Revolt in the Desert, an abridgment of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, in a limited and trade edition that brought his story to a wider audience.

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[LAWRENCE, T.E.] Seven Pillars of Wisdom. A Triumph. [Privately Printed, 1926]. Quarto (251 by 188mm.). The subscribers' or "Cranwell" edition, one of 32 “incomplete” copies (from an edition of 211 copies) (annotated “Incomplete copy | I.XII.26 TES” on page XIX), presentation copy inscribed by the author to E.M. Forster (“E.M.F. | from | T.E.S. | Not good enough, but as good, apparently, as I can do. | I.XII.26.”) on preliminary blank together with later inscription from E.M. Forster to Bob Buckingham (“R.J. Buckingham | from | E.M. Forster | 20-1-68”) on preliminary blank, printed in red and black, frontispiece portrait of King Feysal after Augustus John and 62 (of 65) plates (mostly in colour) and other text illustrations after Roberts, Kennington, Nash, Nicholson and others, 4 folding coloured maps, decorative initials by Edward Wadsworth.

Original full tan morocco signed by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, tooled in gilt on covers, spine gilt in compartments, endpapers by Kennington, collector’s tan morocco backed folding box with thirty typed leaves and one handwritten leaf by Forster, occasional light spotting, one of the most complete of the “incomplete copies” but lacking plates ‘Waterfalls’ and ‘Mountains’ (within the plates following the text) and ‘Prophet’s Tomb’ (not listed, but noted by O’Brien).

O'Brien A040.

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Images courtesy of Sotheby's, with our thanks.
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Europe's Favorite Nineteenth Century Turkish Delight

By Stephen J. Gertz

Harem scene.

In 1842, Amadeo Preziosi (1816-1882),  from a noble and wealthy Maltese  family  and a graduate of the Paris Academy of Fine Arts, packed up his paints and brushes and journeyed from Malta to Istanbul, the Gateway to the East and capitol of the Ottoman Empire.

Coffee House.

The lure of the Orient was no less compelling to Preziosi than it was for Eugene Delacroix, Alexandre Decamps,  Eugene Fromentin, and many other painters. European artists, writers, scholars and the simply curious few, entranced by the city's exotic reputation, flocked there. Istanbul was a theme park for tourists, right on Europe's doorstep.

In Sweet Waters, a park along the Bosphorus.

Most artists stayed for a few months, or perhaps a few years, to immerse themselves in Istanbul's vivid daily life, customs, people and architecture. Preziosi visited and never left. He married a Turkish woman of Greek extraction, had four children, and lived comfortably, with a vacation home in the countryside.

In a Bazaar.

Though known for his private commisisons he introduced his Istanbul to the European public at large with his extravagantly beautiful series of chromolithographs Stamboul Souvenir d'Orient (Lemercier, 1858, reissued by Lemercier in 1861, and published in a second edition by Lemercier in 1865). Containing twenty-eight stunning plates, a fine copy of the second edition has just some into the marketplace.

Turkish Ladies Walking.

Preziosi "notes in his memoirs that his original intention had been to stay for two years, but so absorbed did he become in the sights and bewitching atmosphere of this city that it held him like a magnet, and he hardly noticed the passing of the years. Sketchbook under arm he wandered its streets, caught up in an increasing love for the city and its people. Istanbul returned Preziosi’s affection, and he was welcomed everywhere, in tiny back street shops, coffee houses, hamams (Turkish baths), and places of worship. In his canvases he immortalised the humdrum sights of daily life: a street seller, a dancing bear, a woman filling her water jar at a street fountain. Through his eyes we also see the blue waters of the Bosphorus with caiques gliding along, pavilions and palaces. His paintings sold well among local and foreign customers alike, who hung them on the walls of their grand houses and palaces" (A Maltese Painter Of Istanbul Scenes: Amadeo Preziosi).

Mevlevi Dervish.

French art historian and critic Victor Champier (1851-1929), in his Forward to the third edition, retitled  Stamboul, Moeurs et Costumes (Canson: 1883), wrote of Preziosi and Istanbul:

"Istanbul… This word sounds to the ear like a battle cry or a song of victory. Istanbul is the name given by the Turks to this glorious city, once known as Byzantium and today also as Constantinople. It is Istanbul, with its winding streets, markets, picturesque excursion places and curious sights, whose life and true substance Monsieur Amadeo Preziosi presents to us in his watercolours. Certainly one rarely encounters an artist who has left his homeland at a young age, and made a home for himself in the bosom of a civilization little known even in Europe. This is an artist whose eyes have been rinsed in the splendid light of the Orient, enabling him to capture the depth of its meaning and enjoy the happiness of sensing the strength and capacity of its spirit."

Druggist's Shop.

From the 15th through the 18th centuries, Turquerie was an Orientalist style imitative of Turkish culture and art. Increased diplomatic and commercial ties to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey its center, created a passionate fascination with Eastern exoticism. An English translation of The Arabian Nights appeared in 1706 and stoked the fire. By the nineteenth century, Romantic Orientalism had developed into a distinct literary genre with writers such as Coleridge, Byron, and Shelley captivated by the  region's perceived sensuous rhythms and color. The mysteries of veiled women and the harem stirred the senses. Europe's fascination with the Orient would continue to grow throughout the century.

Given this attraction, with its distinct sensual undercurrent, which Preziosi so keenly captured in his portraits of the women of Istanbul (featured in over half of the chomolithographs), it is no surprise that a genre of erotic literature developed to satisfy the European man's desire to learn what went on behind the harem's doors when the veils were removed. Thus The Lustful Turk (1828) and  A Night in a Moorish Harem (c. 1900), bookends to the height of Europe's fascination and grand amour for the exotic Orient and the Muslim world.

The West's distorted perspective of the Orient wrought by the Romantics haunts our relations with the East to this day.

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PREZIOSI, [Amadeo]. Stamboul. Souvenir D'Orient. Paris: Imp. Lemercier, 1865. Second edition. Folio. Tinted pictorial title page, engraved list of plates, twenty-eight (28) chromolithographed plates mounted on card.

Bobins III, 1098. Blackmer 1353. Cf. Atabey 999 (1861). Cf. Colas 2422 (1858). Cf. Lipperheide 1440 (1858, 1861).

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Images courtesy of Shapero Rare Books, currently offering this item, with our thanks.

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The Way It Was In Tripoli, 1817

by Stephen J Gertz

Tully (Richard). Narrative of a Ten Years' Residence at Tripoli in Africa.
London: Printed for Henry Colburn..., 1817

In 1816, Tripoli was one of the pirate Barbary States, collecting tribute from the U.S. in exchange for  protection of America's maritime commerce in the Mediterranean. The first and second Barbary Wars had been fought by the U.S. against the Pasha's demands for increased amounts of extortionate baksheesh.

The English-speaking public had little knowledge of Tripoli. That would change in 1816 with the publication of Narrative of a Ten Years' Residence at Tripoli in Africa, still, rare book or otherwise, a key behind-the-scenes source. This singular collection of letters relating to Tripoli contains valuable information on the court of the city's Pasha and remains one of the few public accounts  of the private world of the North African despot.

Officers of the Grand Seraglio regaling.

As admitted in the Preface, the letters were actually written by Miss Tully, the sister-in-law of Richard Tully, British Consul in Tripoli (1783-1793) yet, curiously, Edwards, in his Catalogue of books on Africa, attributes the letters to Tully himself. All of Tully's female relations were, it seems, on very intimate terms with the family of the Pasha, which gave the author entre-nous opportunity to collect a huge amount of exotic information.

Sidy Hassan, late Bey of Tripoly.

First published in 1816, the letters detail every aspect of life at the Pasha's court and the daily world  of the ordinary person, containing exact descriptions of houses, mosques, clothing, mores, manners, and customs. The work contains a list of the names of the Royal Family of Tripoli, and an appendix with Moorish vocabulary.

An Egyptian Puppet Shew.

"It contains the only exact account which has ever been made publicly known of the private manners and conduct of the Bashaw of Tripoli. It has also been the object of the author to present a faithful picture of the manners, ideas and sentiments of the Moors" [Vorwort].

A Bedouin Peasant Woman.

So faithful, indeed, that the book has found a place in English literature, providing descriptive source material for many works by authors who had never been to Tripoli - or any other  Arab land - and/or borrowed from this book, not the least of whom was Byron, who admitted to plagiarizing it

Arabs recreating in the Desert.

"Almost all Don Juan is real life, either my own, or from people I knew. By the way, much of the description of the furniture, in Canto Third, is taken from Tully's Tripoli (pray note this), and the rest from my own observation. Remember, I never meant to conceal this at all, and have only not stated it, because Don Juan  had no preface, nor name to it" (Lord Byron to John Murray, publisher, August 23, 1821).

It is unlikely that any Romantic poetry will be written about Tripoli under the rule of Mohammar Quadaffi [fill-in alternative spellings], nor about his furniture. That he made his bed and now has to sleep in it, however, does have its lyric possibilities.

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Tully (Richard). Narrative of a Ten Years' Residence at Tripoli in Africa, published from the originals in the possession of the family of the late Richard Tully, Esq., the British consul: comprising authentic memoirs and anecdotes of the reigning Bashaw, his family, and other persons of distinction; also an account of the domestic manners of the Moors, Arabs, and Turks. London: Printed for Henry Colburn..., 1817.

Second edition. Quarto. xvi, 376 (incl. index), [2] pp. Folding engraved map,  seven hand-coloured aquatint plates. Contains three additional plates not found in the first edition.

Abbey, Travel 301; Atabey 1241; Blackmer 1682; Tooley 494. 
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Image courtesy of Antiquariat Forum, with our thanks.
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Lawrence of Arabia, Postage Stamp Designer

by Stephen J. Gertz

Titlepage (r).

While he was going quietly nutty as a desk jockey in Cairo  attached to Britian's  Egyptian Survey in 1916 during World War I, T.E. Lawrence, not yet the legendary Lawrence of Arabia, worked on a project that became the symbolic first shot fired in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

He designed and printed postage stamps.

Titlepage (l).

The stamps were collected in a limited edition book in 1918, A Short Note on the Design and Issue of Postage Stamps Prepared by the Survey of Egypt for His Highness Husein Emir & Sherif of Mecca & King of the Hejaz. One of the most respected and desirable volumes of philatelic literature, it has become an extremely rare book; no copies have come to auction within the last thirty-five years.

While Lawrence is not overtly named within this slim volume,  E.M. Dowson, British Director-General  of the Survey of Egypt, takes note in the text to “El Emir ‘Awrunis of the Northern Armies of his Highness the King of the Hejaz at whose suggestion this work was undertaken."

Quarter Piastre
Half Piastre
One Piastre

Lawrence and Col. Ronald Storrs did the initial research on design. Of Storrs Lawrence wrote, "The first of all of us was Ronald Storrs, Oriental Secretary of the Residency, the most brilliant Englishman in the Near East, and subtly efficient, despite his diversion of energy in love of music and letters, of sculpture, painting, of whatever was beautiful in the world's fruit... Storrs was always first, and the great man among us" (Seven Pillars of Wisdom).

T.E. Lawrence.

 In his memoir, Orientations (London: Nicholson and Watson, 1937) Storrs recalled the stamp project:

"Shortly after the Arab Revolution [i.e. when the Arabs declared their independence] we found that its success was being denied or blanketed by Enemy Press .., and we decided that the best proof that it had taken place would be provided by an issue of Hajaz postage stamps, which would carry the Arab propaganda, self-paying and incontrovertible, to the four corners of the earth. Sir Harry  MacMahon [1862-1949], High Commissioner Egypt [1914-1916] was quick to approve, and the Foreign Office approved him. I had corresponded with King Hussein on the project, and he sent me by return of mail a design purporting to typify Islamic architecture, but to the layman indistinguishable from the Eddystone Lighthouse. I felt that this would never do, and wandered around with Lawrence round the Arab  Museum in Cairo collecting suitable motifs in order that the design in wording, spirit and ornament, might be as far as possible representative and reminiscent of a purely Arab source of inspiration. Pictures and views were avoided, for these never formed part of Arab decoration, and are foreign to its art;  so also was European lettering.

"It was quickly apparent that Lawrence already possessed or had immediately assimilated a complete working technique of philatelic and three-color reproduction, so that he was able to supervise the issue from start to finish." 

Endpaper.

The stamps were issued in September of 1916, just prior to Lawrence's assignment to join the Arab revolt  as British military liaison in October of that year. Not only were the stamps beautiful  to the eye, they were, apparently, tasty on the tongue. Lawrence circulated a story, perhaps apocryphal, that he had used a strawberry-flavored glue which created a problem as the Arabs were buying  the stamps simply to lick them.

"These were the first stamps to be produced by the Survey of Egypt and they clearly offered new challenges in their production. In 1918 this achievement was marked by the Survey printing and publishing one of the most attractive items in philatelic literature [our emphasis]. It describes aspects of the production process including paper, watermark, printing inks and cancellations. It continues with some of the associated correspondence with Hejaz and reprinted essays, proofs and color trials on twelve plates. A two page title page decorated in Arabesque designs, has affixed examples of all nine designs of stamps. E.D. Bacon (1860-1938) in a review [The London Philatelist, vol. 28, pp. 271-271, Dec. 1919] says 'The volume is unique in its way, inasmuch as it is, we believe, the first instance of an authentic and carefully prepared history of the production of a set of stamps being compiled and published by  the actual makers thereof'" (Beech, David R. Survey of Egyptian Book 1918, p. 1).

Limitation-Presentation Leaf.

These stamps remain a poignant reminder of a dream lost in highly politicized sand. An assertion of Arab independence and desire to be rid of foreign influence - going postal, if you will, against the Ottomans before actual hostilities broke out - they remain a strong visual symbol of short-lived Arab unity, and of the subsequent betrayal by the British of their promise to respect the aspirations of the Arabs after the war was won.

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[LAWRENCE, T.E. (stamp designer and printer); Sir E.M. Dowson (text)]. A Short Note on the Design and Issue of Postage Stamps Prepared by the Survey of Egypt for His Highness Husein Emir & Sherif of Mecca & King of the Hejaz. El Quahira [Cairo]: [Survey of Egypt], 1918. First and only edition, limited to 200 numbered copies, this copy being no. 48. Quarto. 22 pp. White boards decorated in green. Decorative endpapers. Twelve plates. Text states "E.M.D./Winter 1917" on p. 22.

The primary philatelic references to Lawrence and these stamps are:

HAWORTH, W.B. and H.l. Sargent. The  Postage Stamps of the Hejaz. London: Junior Philatelic Society, 1922.  64 pp.

BEECH, David R. Hejaz: The First Postage Stamps of 1916 and T.E. Lawrence (The London Philatelist, vol. 114, pp. 323-327, Nov. 2005.

BEECH, David R. Hejaz: The First Postage Stamps of 1916 and T.E. Lawrence: Additional Information (The London Philatelist, vol. 116, pp. 38-40, March 2007.
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Images from book courtesy of Peter Harrington. who is currently offering this volume for £6,500 ($10,355). Image of three stamps courtesy of Dropbears.

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