Physical
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Only edition. 192 pp., quarto, 228:140 mm., wide margins, light age staining, stamps, plates. A very good copy bound in contemporary marbled paper over boards, rubbed. |
Detailed
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First issue of a planned annual collection of articles by noted authors on important personalities of German extraction in Hungary edited by Carl Maria Benkert (Kertbeny). The author is a person of considerable renown for reasons unrelated to this work. The title is Jahrbuch des deutchen Elementes in Ungarn (Year book for the German element in Hungary) with the subtitle Mit Originalbeiträgen namhafter Schriftstellar (with original contributions from famous writers). The Jahrbuch is dedicated to the deutschen volke in the ungaren Nation, introductory quotes from Chanmfort, Göthe, and Vörösmarty, and then the essays. Each essay is proceeded by a page bearing the name of the writer only, making this a more deluxe volume than the ordinary Jahrbuch. The essays are Ludwig von Scheius on Albrecht Dűrer; Johann Ladislaus Parker’s verse Veruigung auf der Alpe; Johann Graf Mailath on Köingen Gertrud und Klara Baach; August Baur, several works of verse; Joseph Häufler, Korvin’sche Memorabilien; Natalie, verse, Dr. Carl Rumn, Alexancer Esoma von Körös; Theodore Bakodn, verse; Eduard Glats, Ueber deutsche Einwanderung in Ungarn; Adolph Hochberg, verse, Rabbi Leopold Löw, Vrsuch einer Statisk der Israeliten in Ungarn; Dr. Johann Nep. Vogl., verse; Naum Oeconum, verse, Lázár von Károl, Die ungarischen Maler; Franz Reisinger, verse; and Carl Maria Benkert, Jugendträume.
Karl-Maria Kertbeny or Károly Mária Kertbeny (born Karl-Maria Benkert) (1824 – 1882), Austrian-born Hungarian journalist, memoirist and human rights campaigner who coined the word homosexual, was born in Vienna, the son of a writer and a painter. The Benkert family moved to Budapest when he was a child—he was equally at home in Austria, Hungary or Germany. As a young man, while working as a bookseller's apprentice, Benkert had a close friend who was a homosexual. This young man killed himself after being blackmailed by an extortionist. Benkert later recalled that it was this tragic episode which led him to take a close interest in the subject of homosexuality, following what he called his "instinctive drive to take issue with every injustice."
After a stint in the Hungarian army, Benkert made a living as a journalist and travel writer, and wrote at least twenty-five books on various subjects, none of them of any lasting value. In 1847, he legally changed his name from Benkert to Karl-Maria Kertbeny (or Károly Mária Kertbeny), a Hungarian name with aristocratic associations. He settled in Berlin in 1868, still unmarried at 44. He claimed in his writings to be "normally sexed," and there is no direct evidence to contradict this, despite the scepticism of subsequent writers. |
