Description: The influence of censorship on the intellectual and political life in the Habsburg Monarchy during the period under scrutiny can hardly be overstated. This study examines the institutional foundations, operating principles, and results of the censorial activity through analysis of the prohibition lists and examination of the censors themselves. The effects of censorship on the authors, publishers, and booksellers of the time are illustrated with the help of contemporary documents. Numerous case studies focus on individual works forbidden by the censors: Romanticists like Ludwig Tieck and E. T. A. Hoffmann and even authors of classic German literature like Wieland, Goethe, and Schiller saw their works slashed, as did writers of popular French and English novels and plays. An annex documents the most important regulations along with a selection of censorial reports.
Brief description: Norbert Bachleitner is a Professor emeritus of Comparative Literature at the University of Vienna, Austria. He was visiting professor at various universities including the Sorbonne nouvelle in Paris and is a member of the Academia Europaea. His fields of interest include the reception of English and French literature in the German speaking area; literary translation and transfer studies; social history of literature; censorship; literature in periodicals; intertextuality, and digital literature. His most recent book publications are (ed., together with Achim Hölter and John A. McCarthy) Taking Stock - Twenty-Five Years of Comparative Literary Research (Leiden, Boston: Brill 2020); (ed.) Literary Translation, Reception, and Transfer (Proceedings of the ICLA Conference in Vienna 2016, vol. 2, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter 2020); and (ed., together with Juliane Werner) Popular Music and the Poetics of Self in Contemporary Fiction (Leiden, Boston: Brill 2022).
Review Quotes: "Although Censorship of Literature in Austria is destined for a specialized audience, it is a landmark capstone to Professor Bachleitner's career and looks set to become required reading for anyone interested in nineteenth-century European censorship."
- Robert Justin Goldstein, Oakland University, USA, European History Quarterly 53(4), pgs.705-707