Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Dunkle Gestade (Aufgesang)

Well, the Royal Mail has very slightly redeemed itself in my eyes by delivering to me this morning a box full of books. The books in question are copies of my German collection, Dunkle Gestade. At last the book has been released. I don't actually have a great deal to say about the event. It's reassuring to me that something else of mine has been published. But I'm too tired to philosophise about it right now.

The book is published by Blitz-Verlag. It is part of their "Edgar Allan Poe's Phantastilche Bibliothek" line of books. This is appropriate because there is a Poe reference in the title of the book. The selection of stories on offer here is different to the selections in any of my English publications. For that reason it was necessary for me to think of a new title. I don't speak German, so I had to liaise with my contact at Blitz on this matter. I came up with a number of titles that were basically quotes from poems by Edgar Allan Poe (as well as some others that I made up myself). For a while it looked like we might use 'A Demon in My View'. Then my contact picked up on another suggestion I had made - a quote from Poe's 'The Raven' - which was 'Night's Plutonian Shore'. This he translated as, well, as 'Dunkle Gestade'. Translated back into English, this apparently means 'Dark Shore'. However, I am reassured by a number of German people that, in German, this is really a wonderfully poetic phrase. So, thank you to my contact at Blitz, Markus Korb.



The 'aufgesang' part of the title denotes this volume as one of two. As yet I'm not sure when Volume Two will appear. The tales included in Volume One are 'Cousin X', 'The Mermaid' (Die Meerjungfrau), 'Decay' (Verfall), 'The Recluse' (Der Einsiedler) and 'The Meat Factory' (Die Fleischfabrik). I find this an interesting selection. Most of these are very early tales, and 'The Meat Factory' has never been published anywhere before; it has its debut in German translation.

There are also very atmospheric illustrations from Mark Freier throughout.

Now I'm going to see if I can learn German by comparing the translation with the original.