The Gespensterbuch (literally 'Ghost Book' or 'Book of Spectres'[1]) is a collection of German ghost stories written by August Apel and Friedrich Laun and published in five volumes between 1810 and 1815. The fifth volume was also published as the first volume of Apel and Laun's Wunderbuch (1815–1817), which served as a continuation of the Gespensterbuch series.
| Volume | Year | Original title | Literal translation | Author | First English translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1810 | "Der Freischütz" | 'The Freeshooter' | Apel | 1823 |
| "Das Ideal" | 'The Ideal' | Laun | |||
| "Der Geist des Verstorbenen" | 'The Ghost of the Deceased' | Laun | 2005 | ||
| "König Pfau" | 'King Peacock' | Apel | |||
| "Die Verwandtschaft mit der Geisterwelt" | 'The Connection with the Spirit-World' | Laun | 1813 | ||
| 2 | 1811 | "Die Todtenbraut" | 'The Dead Bride' | Laun | 1813 |
| "Die Bräutigamsvorschau" | 'The Bridegroom Preview' | Apel | 1845 | ||
| "Der Todtenkopf" | 'The Death's Head' | Laun | 1813 | ||
| "Die schwarze Kammer" | 'The Black Chamber' | Apel | 1823 | ||
| "Das Todesvorzeichen" | 'The Death Omens' | Laun | 1825 | ||
| "Der Brautschmuck" | 'The Bridal Jewelry' | Apel | 1826 | ||
| "Empusa-Lamia: Griechische Sage" | 'Empusa-Lamia: Greek Legend' | Apel | 1824 | ||
| "Asvit und Asmund: Nordische Sage" | 'Asvid and Asmund: Norse Legend' | Apel | |||
| "Alp" | 'Alp' | Apel | 1845 | ||
| "Der Rabe: Griechisches Märchen" | 'The Raven: Greek Tale' | Apel | 1823 | ||
| "Hildur's Zauberlied: Nordische Sage" | 'Hildur's Magic Song: Norse Legend' | Apel | |||
| 3 | 1811 | "Die Vorbedeutungen" | 'The Portents' | Laun | |
| "Klara Mongomery" | 'Clara Montgomery' | Apel | 1825 | ||
| "Der Gespensterläugner" | 'The Ghost-Deniers' | Laun | |||
| "Das Geisterschloß" | 'The Ghost-Castle' | Apel | |||
| "Der Geisterruf" | 'The Ghost Call' | Apel | 1835 | ||
| "Der Todtentanz" | 'The Dance of the Dead' | Apel | 1824 | ||
| 4 | 1811 | "Zwei Neujahrsnächte" | 'Two New Year's Nights' | Apel | 1839 |
| "Der verhängnisvolle Abend" | 'The Fateful Evening' | Laun | |||
| "Zauberliebe" | 'Magic Love' | Apel | |||
| "Die Braut im Sarge" | 'The Bride in the Coffin' | Laun | |||
| "Das unterirdische Glück" | 'The Underground Fortune' | Laun | |||
| 5 | 1815 | "Der Heckethaler" | 'The Hedge Thaler' | Laun | |
| "Der Liebesschwur" | 'The Love Oath' | Laun | |||
| "Die Ruine von Paulinzell" | 'The Ruins of Paulinzell' | Apel | |||
| "Die Hausehre" | 'The House-Honour' | Laun | |||
| "Die Schuhe auf den Stangen" | 'The Shoes on the Poles' | Apel | |||
| "Legende" | 'Legend' | Laun | |||
| "Das silberne Fräulein" | 'The Silver Maiden' | Apel | 1837 |
According to Friedrich Laun's memoirs, Laun had stayed a week at Apel's family estate at Ermlitz, near Schkopau. A few stories were told about ghosts that appeared there at and after dusk, from the times when a high court was located nearby. These stories made such an impression on Apel and Laun, that when they returned to Leipzig they recounted them to their friends over tea. This proved very popular, and they started to hold Gespensterthee ('ghost tea') evenings from time to time, where ghost stories were told, and which led Apel and Laun to write the Gespensterbuch.[2]
They tried to add variety to the book by including comic fairy tales, "Das Ideal" and "König Pfau", in the first volume, but this met with disapproval.[2] The first volume also included "Der Freischütz", a story written by Apel about a hunter making a pact with the devil. Johann Georg Theodor Grässe traced the origin of this story to a 1730 book called Monatliche Unterredungen aus dem Reich der Geister ('Monthly Conversations from the Spirit-World') which contained a similar story taken from a 1710 court session in Bohemia. Laun owned a copy of this book, and Grässe theorised that he brought the story to the attention of Apel.[3][4] Some characters in the stories may have been based on personal acquaintances, such Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Wagner (1770–1813), a police actuary, who may have inspired "Aktuarius Wermuth" in "Die schwarze Kammer".[5]
Both Apel and Laun knew Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whose play Claudine von Villa Bella (1776) may have influenced Laun's "Die Todtenbraut". Scholar Robert Stockhammer notes that "Der Todtenkopf" contains characters inspired by Cagliostro, who Goethe had written on, and who may have been discussed when Laun visited Goethe in 1804.[6] Goethe's "Erlkönig" (1782) also inspired Apel's poem "Alp".[7][8][9]
For the fifth volume, they decided to exand the scope from ghosts to anything that could not be explained by the laws of nature, and gave the series a second title: Wunderbuch ('Book of Miracles'). In another attempt to add variety, they decided to invite other authors to contribute, which led to Apel's friends Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and Carl Borromäus von Miltitz writing stories for the final volume of the Wunderbuch.[2]
Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès translated fives stories into French for his anthology Fantasmagoriana (1812): "Die Todtenbraut", "Die Verwandtschaft mit der Geisterwelt", "Der Todtenkopf", "Die schwarze Kammer", and "Der Geist des Verstorbenen". The first three of these were then translated from French to English by Sarah Elizabeth Utterson in Tales of the Dead (1813). The fourth of these stories was translated from the original German by Thomas De Quincey in Knight's Quarterly Magazine (1823),[10][11] which was followed by Robert Pearse Gillies' translations of the first two directly from the German in German Stories (1826), and Charles John Tibbits' abridged translation of the first story in Terrible Tales: German (1891). The first three were translated again by Marjorie Bowen in Great Tales of Horror (1933) and More Great Tales of Horror (1935), and the last two were translated by A. J. Day, and included together with Utterson's translations in Fantasmagoriana: Tales of the Dead (2005).[12]
Following the success of Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz (1821), the Gespensterbuch story that it was based on – also called "Der Freischütz" – was translated into English several times. It was first translated by Thomas De Quincey and published anonymously as "The Fatal Marksman" in Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations (1823),[13] followed by "Der Freischütz; or, The Magic Balls" by Mary Diana Dods in Tales of the Wild and the Wonderful (1825), again as "Der Freischutz" in George Godfrey Cunningham's Foreign Tales and Traditions (1829) along with "Der Todtentanz" as "The Piper of Neisse", and anonymously as The Original Legend of Der Freischütz, or the Free Shot (1833).
Several more Gespensterbuch translations were published in magazines and annuals: "Der Rabe" as "The Raven: A Greek Tale" in Knight's Quarterly Magazine (1823), "Empusa-Lamia" as "The Lamia: Greek Tradition" in Knight's Quarterly Magazine (1824), "Der Todtentanz" as "The Dance of the Dead" in The Literary Magnet (1824), "Das Todesvorzeichen" as "Death Tokens" in The European Magazine (1825), "Klara Mongomery" as "The Veiled Bride" in The Literary Magnet (1825), "Der Brautschmuck" as "The Bridal Ornaments" in Forget-Me-Not for 1827 (1826), "Der Geisterruf" as "The Spirit's Summons" in Leigh Hunt's London Journal (1835), "Das silberne Fräulein" as "The Silver Lady" in The Keepsake for 1838 (1837), "Zwei Neujahrsnächte" as "The Two New Year's Nights" in The Court Magazine (1839), and "Die Bräutigamsvorschau" as "Fatal Curiosity" in The New Monthly Belle Assemblée (1845). A word-for-word translation of "Alp" was included as "The night-mare" in Wilhelm Klauer-Klattowski's The German Manual for the Young and for Self-Tuition volume 2 (1845). In addition to these translations, some authors adapted Gespensterbuch stories for an English-speaking audience, such as Mary Diana Dods' "The Three Damsels" in Forget-Me-Not for 1827 (1826), based on part of "Die Bräutigamsvorschau", and J. E. Preston Muddock's "The Dance of the Dead" in Tales of Terror (1899), based on "Der Todtentanz". Some translations were never published, such as Mary Diana Dods' translation of "Zauberliebe",[14] and a translation of "Der Gespensterläugner" started by De Quincey in autumn 1824.[15]
"König Pfau" is itself a translation of Madame d'Aulnoy's "La Princesse Rosette" from Les Contes des Fées (1697), which has been translated from the original French into English a number of times as "Princess Rosetta" and "Princess Rosette".[16]
The first tale in the first volume is "Der Freischütz", a retelling by Apel of the Freischütz folktale. It formed the inspiration for Weber's opera Der Freischütz (1821).[17] However, unlike Apel's version, in Weber's opera the final bullet does not kill the protagonist's fiancée, but is deflected, and kills the huntsman who convinced him to cast the bullets instead.
In June 1816, Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John William Polidori and Claire Clairmont read Fantasmagoriana (1812), a collection of German ghost stories translated into French, five of which were from the Gespensterbuch. Inspired by the book, the group decided to write their own ghost stories, with Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein, and Polidori writing The Vampyre, based on Byron's "Fragment of a Novel".[1]
Two of the five Gespensterbuch stories in Fantasmagoriana had a significant influence on Frankenstein. "Die Todtenbraut" ('The Dead Bride') was one of the two stories Mary Shelley described in her introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, and the death of Frankenstein's wife Elizabeth may have been inspired by the story,[18] while "Die schwarze Kammer" ('The Black Chamber') is similar to Mary Shelley's account of the dream that inspired Frankenstein, of a haunting figure standing at the bedside.[19]
Another of the Gespensterbuch stories in Fantasmagoriana, "Die Verwandtschaft mit der Geisterwelt" ('The Connection with the Spirit-World', translated as "L'Heure fatale", 'The Fatal Hour'), may have been an inspiration for the Astarte scene in Byron's Manfred, which he began in late 1816.[20]
Joseph von Auffenberg's 1824 play, Viola, oder die Vorschau ('Viola, or The Preview') was based on Apel's "Die Bräutigamsvorschau" from volume 2 of Gespensterbuch.[21]