Jakob Wassermann Autographs Collection

In Series I, the collection contains 37 letters and postcards written by Jakob Wassermann to family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, covering a variety of topics, from the deeply personal (his negative feelings toward his wife), to the professional (the sale of his books), and to the mundane (his appreciation for the United States). Most letters are accompanied by typed transcripts.

Private correspondence is addressed, among others, to his cousin Frieda Hirsch (2 copied letters, 1916); and to Elly Hirschfeld-Peterson (4 letters, 1899-1919). Private and professional in nature are his letters to the writers Arthur Schnitzler (1923), who had congratulated Wassermann to his 50th birthday; to Sophie Hoechstetter (4 letters, 1906-1907); to Robert Held (1921); to Oskar Schmitz (1908); to Montague „Monty“ Jacobs (1903); and to Max Krell (1926). A statement about Jewish identity was sent to H.W. Callmann (1933).

Wassermann’s professional correspondence is represented by four letters to his publisher Fischer (1918-1923), one of them accompanying a manuscript; and to the editor Hanns von Gumppenberg in Munich (3 letters, 1910-1911).

A postcard was sent to the artist [Susanne] Carvallo-Schulein (1930), who drew Wassermann’s portraits. He also sat for the artist Emil Orlik, as he admitted to Elly Hirschfeld-Peterson in 1899.

Series II: Manuscripts contains next to two short handwritten essays, two complete versions of Jakob Wassermann’s novel Gaensemaennchen in his own hand. The novel was published in 1915.